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THE    INTERNATIONAL   SCIENTIFIC    SERIES. 


THE 


LIFE    AND     GROWTH 


LANGUAGE: 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  LINGUISTIC  SCIENCE. 


WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY, 

PROFESSOR   OF   SANSKRIT    AND   COMPARATIVE    PHILOLOGY    IN    TALB   COLLEGE. 


NEW  YORK: 

D.    APPIETON     AND     COMPANY, 

7.2    FIFTH    AVENUE. 

1900. 


Copyright,  1875, 
By  D.   APPLETON   AND  COMPANY. 


PREFACE. 


The  present  work  needs  only  a  few  words  by  way 
of  introduction.  That  its  subject  calls  for  treatment  in 
the  series  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  especially  at  this 
time,  when  men's  crude  and  inconsistent  views  of  lan- 
guage are  tending  to  crystallize  into  shape,  no  labored 
argument  is  required  to  prove.  Very  discordant  opin- 
ions as  to  the  basis  and  superstructure  of  linguistic 
philosophy  are  vying  for  the  favor,  not  of  the  public 
only,  but  even  of  scholars,  already  deeply  versed  in  the 
facts  of  language-history,  but  uncertain  and  compara- 
tively careless  of  how  these  shall  be  coordinated  and 
explained.  Physical  science  on  the  one  side,  and  psy- 
chology on  the  other,  are  striving  to  take  possession  of 
linguistic  science,  which  in  truth  belongs  to  neither. 
The  doctrines  taught  in  this  volume  are  of  the  class  of 
those  which  have  long  been  widely  prevalent  among 
students  of  man  and  his  institutions;  and  they  only 
need  to  be  exhibited  as  amended  and  supported,  not 
crowded  out  or  overthrown,  by  the  abundant  new 
knowledge  which  the  century  has  yielded,  in  order  to 

v 

91651 


vi  PREFACE. 

win  an  acceptance  well-nigh  universal.  They  who  hold 
them  have  been  too  much  overborne  hitherto  by  the  ill- 
founded  claims  of  men  who  arrogate  a  special  scientific 
or  philosophic  profundity. 

After  one  has  once  gone  over  such  a  subject  upon  a 
carefully  matured  and  s}rstematic  plan,  as  I  did  in  my 
"Language  and  the  Study  of  Language"  (New  York 
and  London,  1867),  it  is  not  possible,  when  treating  it 
again  for  the  same  public,  to  avoid  following  in  the 
main  the  same  course;  and  readers  of  the  former  work 
will  not  fail  to  observe  many  parallelisms  between  the 
two.  Even  a  part  of  the  illustrations  formerly  used 
have  been  turned  again  to  account;  for,  if  it  be  made 
a  principle  to  draw  the  chief  exemplifications  of  the 
life  and  growth  of  language  from  our  own  tongue, 
there  are  certain  matters — especially  our  most  impor- 
tant recent  formative  endings  and  auxiliaries — which 
must  be  taken,  because  they  are  most  available  for  the 
needed  purpose.  Nor  has  the  basis  of  linguistic  facts 
and  their  classification  undergone  during  the  past  eight 
years  such  change  or  extension  as  should  show  conspicu- 
ously in  so  compendious  a  discussion  as  this.  Accord- 
ingly, I  present  here  an  outline  of  linguistic  science 
agreeing  in  many  of  its  principal  features  with  the 
former  one;  the  old  story  told  in  a  new  wa}r,  under 
changed  aspects  and  with  changed  proportions,  and 
with  considerably  less  fullness  of  exposition  and  illus- 
tration. 

The  limits  imposed  on  the  volume  by  the  plan  of 


PREFACE.  vii 

the  series  have  compelled  me  to  abbreviate  certain 
parts  to  which  some  will  perhaps  agree  with  me  iu 
wishing  that  more  extension  could  have  been  given. 
Thus,  it  had  been  my  intention  to  include  in  the  last 
chapter  a  fuller  sketch  of  the  history  of  knowledge  and 
opinion  in  this  department  of  study.  And  I  have  had 
to  leave  the  text  almost  wholly  without  references: 
although  I  may  here  again  allege  the  compendious  cast 
of  the  work,  which  renders  them  little  called  for;  I 
trust  that  no  injustice  will  be  found  to  have  been  done 
to  any.  The  foundation  of  my  discussion  is  the  now 
generally  accessible  facts  of  language,  which  are  no  one 
man's  property  more  than  another's.  As  for  views 
opposed  to  my  own,  while  often  having  them  distinctly 
in  mind  in  their  shape  as  presented  by  particular  schol- 
ars, I  have  hardly  ever  thought  it  necessary  to  report 
them  formally;  and  I  have  on  principle  avoided  any- 
thing bearing  the  aspect  of  personal  controversy. 

New  Haven,  April,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

— -I. — Introductory:    the  Problems  of  the  Science  of 

Language        1 

__  II. — How   each    Individual   acquires    his    Language  : 

Life  of  Language 7 

—III. — The     Conservative    and    Alterative    Forces    in 

Language 32 

_JV. — Growth  of  Language  :  Change  in  the  Outer  Form 

of  Words 45 

V. — Growth  of  Language  :  Change  in  the  Inner  Con- 
tent of  Words 76 

VI. — Growth  of  Language  :  Loss  of  Words  and  Forms      98 
VII. — Growth  of  Language  :  Production  of  New  Words 

and  Forms 108 

VIII. — Summary  :  the  Name-making  Process        .        .        .     134 
IX. — Local  and   Class  Variation   of   Language  :   Dia- 
lects         153 

X. — Indo-European  Language 1 79 

XI. — Linguistic    Structure  :     Material  and   Form    in 

Language 213 

XII. — Other   Families  of  Language:    their    Locality, 

Age,  and  Structure 228 

XIII. — Language  and  Ethnology 265 

-XIV. — Nature  and  Origin  of  Language       ....    278 
XV. — The  Science  of  Language  :  Conclusion     .        .        .    310 


CHAPTEE   I. 

introductory:   the   problems   of   the   science   of 
language. 

Definition  of  language.  Man  its  universal  and  sole  possessor. 
Variety  of  languages.  The  study  of  language;  aim  of  this 
volume. 

Language  may  be  briefly  and  comprehensively  de- 
fined as  the  means  of  expression  of  human  thought. 

In  a  wider  and  freer  sense,  everything  that  bodies 
forth  thought  and  makes  it  apprehensible,  in  whatever 
way,  is  called  language;  and  we  say,  properly  enough, 
that  the  men  of  the  Middle  Ages,  for  example,  speak 
to  us  by  the  great  architectural  works  which  they  have 
left  behind  them,  and  which  tell  us  very  plainly  of 
their  genius,  their  piety,  and  their  valor.  But  for 
scientific  purposes  the  term  needs  restriction,  since  it 
would  apply  else  to  nearly  all  human  action  and  prod- 
uct, which  discloses  the  thought  that  gives  it  birth. 
Language,  then,  signifies  rather  certain  instrumentali- 
ties whereby  men  consciously  and  with  intention  rep- 
resent their  thought,  to  the  end,  chiefly,  of  making  it 
known  to  other  men:  it  is  expression  for  the  sake  of 
communication. 
it  The  instrumentalities  capable  of  being  used  for  this 
purpose,  and  actually  more  or  less  used,  are  various: 
gesture  and  grimace,  pictorial  or  written  signs,  and 

1 


2  INTRODUCTORY. 

uttered  or  spoken  signs :  the  first  two  addressed  to  the 
eye,  the  last  to  the  ear.  The  first  is  chiefly  employed 
by  mutes — though  not  in  its  purity,  inasmuch  as  these 
unfortunates  are  wont  to  be  trained  and  taught  by 
those  who  speak,  and  their  visible  signs  are  more  or 
less  governed  by  habits  born  of  utterance;  going  even 
so  far  as  slavishly  to  represent  the  sounds  of  speech. 
The  second,  though  in  its  inception  a  free  and  independ- 
ent means  of  expression,  yet  in  its  historical  develop- 
ment becomes  linked  as  a  subordinate  to  speech,  and 
even  finds  in  that  subordination  its  highest  perfection 
and  greatest  usefulness.*  The  third  is,  as  things  actu- 
ally are  in  the  world,  infinitely  the  most  important ;  in- 
somuch that  in  ordinary  use  "  language  "  means  utter- 
ance, and  utterance  only.  And  so  we  shall  understand 
it  here:  language,  for  the  purposes  of  this  discussion, 
is  the  body  of  uttered  and  audible  signs  by  which  in 
human  society  thought  is  principally  expressed,  gesture 
and  writing  being  its  subordinates  and  auxiliaries,  f 

Of  such  spoken  and  audible  means  of  expression 
no  human  community  is  found  destitute.  From  the 
highest  races  to  the  lowest,  all  men  speak;  all  are  able 
to  interchange  such  thoughts  as  they  have.  Language, 
then,  appears  clearly  "natural"  to  man;  such  are  his 
endowments,  such  his  circumstances,  such  his  history — 
one  or  all  of  these — that  it  is  his  invariable  possession. 

Moreover,  man  is  the  sole  possessor  of  language. 
It  is  true  that  a  certain  degree  of  power  of  communi- 
cation, sufficient  for  the  infinitely  restricted  needs  of 
their  gregarious  intercourse,  is  exhibited  also  by  some 

*  See  the  author's  "  Language  and  the  Study  of  Language," 
p.  448  seq. ;  and  his  "  Oriental  and  Linguistic  Studies,"  ii.  193-196. 

f  Their  natural  and  historical  relations  will  be  further  treated 
of  in  chapter  xiv. 


DIVERSITY  OP  HUMAN  LANGUAGE.  3 

of  the  lower  animals.  Thus,  the  dog's  bark  and  howl 
signify  by  their  difference,  and  each  by  its  various  style 
and  tone,  very  different  things;  the  domestic  fowl  has 
a  song  of  quiet  enjoyment  of  life,  a  clutter  of  excite- 
ment and  alarm,  a  cluck  of  maternal  anticipation  or 
care,  a  cry  of  warning — and  so  on.  But  these  are  not 
only  greatly  inferior  in  their  degree  to  human  lan- 
guage; they  are  also  so  radically  diverse  in  kind  from 
it,  that  the  same  name  cannot  justly  be  applied  to  both. 
Language  is  one  of  the  most  marked  and  conspicuous, 
as  well  as  fundamentally  characteristic,  of  the  faculties 
of  man. 

Nevertheless,  while  human  language  is  thus  one  as 
contrasted  with  brute  expression,  it  is  in  itself  of  a 
variety  which  is  fairly  to  be  termed  discordance.  It  is 
a  congeries  of  individual  languages,  separate  bodies  of 
audible  signs  for  thought,  which,  reckoning  even  those 
alone  of  which  the  speakers  are  absolutely  unintelli- 
gible to  one  another,  are  very  numerous.  These  lan- 
guages differ  among  themselves  in  every  degree.  Some 
are  so  much  alike  that  their  users  can  with  sufficient 
trouble  and  care  come  to  understand  one  another;  of 
others,  even  a  superficial  examination  shows  abundant 
correspondences;  of  yet  others,  similar  points  of  ac- 
cordance are  rarer,  and  only  discoverable  by  practised 
study  and  research;  and  a  great  number  are  to  all  ap- 
pearance wholly  diverse — and  often,  not  only  diverse 
in  respect  to  the  actual  signs  which  they  use  for  their 
various  conceptions,  but  also  as  to  their  whole  struc- 
ture, the  relations  which  they  signify,  the  parts  of 
speech  they  recognize.  And  this  diversity  does  not 
accord  with  differences  of  intellectual  capacity  among 
the  speakers :  individuals  of  every  degree  of  gift  are 
found  using,  each  according  to  his  power,  the  same 


4  INTRODUCTORY. 

identical  dialect;  and  souls  of  kindred  calibre  in  differ- 
ent societies  can  hold  no  communion  together.  Nor 
does  it  accord  with  geographical  divisions;  nor  yet,  in 
its  limits  and  degrees,  with  the  apparent  limits  of 
races.  Not  seldom,  far  greater  race-differences  are  met 
with  among  the  speakers  of  one  language,  or  of  one 
body  of  resembling  languages,  than  between  those  who 
use  dialects  wholly  unlike  one  another. 

These,  and  their  like,  are  the  problems  which  oc- 
cupy the  attention  of  those  who  pursue  the  science  of 
language,  or  linguistic  science.  That  science  strives  to 
comprehend  language,  both  in  its  unity,  as  a  means  of 
human  expression  and  as  distinguished  from  brute 
communication,  and  in  its  internal  variety,  of  material 
and  structure.  It  seeks  to  discover  the  cause  of  the 
resemblances  and  differences  of  languages,  and  to  effect 
a  classification  of  them,  by  tracing  out  the  lines  of  re- 
semblance, and  drawing  the  limits  of  difference.  It 
seeks  to  determine  what  language  is  in  relation  to 
thought,  and  how  it  came  to  sustain  this  relation; 
what  keeps  up  its  life  and  what  has  kept  it  in  existence 
in  past  time,  and  even,  if  possible,  how  it  came  into 
existence  at  all.  It  seeks  to  know  what  language  is 
worth  to  the  mind,  and  what  has  been  its  part  in  the 
development  of  our  race.  And,  less  directly,  it  seeks 
to  learn  and  set  forth  what  it  may  of  the  history  of  hu- 
man development,  and  of  the  history  of  races,  their 
movements  and  connections,  so  far  as  these  are  to  be 
read  in  the  facts  of  language. 

No  reflecting  and  philosophizing  people  has  ever 
been  blind  to  the  exceeding  interest  of  problems  like 
these,  or  has  failed  to  offer  some  contribution  toward 
their  solution.  Yet  the  body  of  truth  discovered  in 
earlier  times  has  been  so  small,  that  the  science  of  Ian- 


THE  SCIENCE  OP  LANGUAGE.  5 

guage  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  modern  one,  as  much  so 
as  geology  and  chemistry;  it  beioiigs^JUke  them,  to  the 
nineteenth  century.  To  review  its  history  is  no  part  of 
our  present  task;  no  justice  could  be  done  the  subject 
within  the  space  that  could  be  spared  it  in  this  volume ; 
and  the  few  words  that  we  can  bestow  upon  it  will  be 
better  said  in  the  last  chapter  than  here.  Although  of 
so  recent  growth,  the  science  of  language  is  already 
one  of  the  leading  branches  of  modern  inquiry.  It  is 
not  less  comprehensive  in  its  material,  definite  in  its 
aims,  strict  in  its  methods,  and  rich  and  fruitful  in  its 
results,  than  its  sister  sciences.  Its  foundations  have 
been  laid  deep  and  strong  in  the  thorough  analysis  of 
many  of  the  most  important  human  tongues,  and  the 
careful  examination  and  classification  of  nearly  all  the 
rest.  It  has  yielded  to  the  history  of  mankind  as  a 
whole,  and  to  that  of  the  different  races  of  men,  defi- 
nite truths  and  far-reaching  glimpses  of  truth  which 
could  be  won  in  no  other  way.  It  is  bringing  about  a 
re-cast  of  the  old  methods  of  teaching  even  familiar 
and  long-studied  languages,  like  the  Latin  and  Greek; 
it  is  drawing  forward  to  conspicuous  notice  others  of 
which,  only  a  few  years  ago,  hardly  the  names  were 
known.  It  has,  in  short,  leavened  all  the  connected 
branches  of  knowledge,  and  worked  itself  into  the  very 
structure  of  modern  thought,  so  that  no  one  who  hears 
or  reads  can  help  taking  some  cognizance  of  it.  No 
educated  person  can  afford  to  lack  a  clear  conception 
of  at  least  a  brief  connected  outline  of  a  science  pos- 
sessing such  claims  to  attention. 

•  The  design  of  this  volume,  accordingly,  is  to  draw 
out  and  illustrate  the  principles  of  linguistic  science, 
and  to  set  forth  its  results,  with  as  much  fullness  as  the 
limited  space  at  command  shall  allow.     The  study  is 


6  INTRODUCTORY. 

not  yet  so  developed  and  established  as  not  to  include 
subjects  respecting  which  opinions  still  differ  widely 
and  deeply.  But  direct  controversy  will  be  avoided; 
and  the  attempt  will  be  made  to  construct  an  argu- 
ment which  shall  commend  itself  to  acceptance  by  the 
coherence  of  its  parts  and  the  reasonableness  of  its 
conclusions.  In  accordance  with  the  plan  of  the  series 
of  treatises  into  which  this  enters  as  a  member,  sim- 
plicity and  popular  apprehensibility  will  be  everywhere 
aimed  at.  To  start  from  obvious  or  familiar  truths, 
to  exemplify  by  well-known  facts,  will  be  found,  it  is 
believed,  the  best  way  to  arrive  with  assurance  at  the 
ultimate  results  sought  after.  The  prime  facts  of  lan- 
guage lie,  as  it  were,  within  the  easy  grasp  of  every 
man  who  speaks — yet  more,  of  every  man  who  has 
studied  other  languages  than  his  own — and  to  direct 
intelligent  attention  toward  that  which  is  essential,  to 
point  out  the  general  in  the  midst  of  the  particular 
and  the  fundamental  underneath  the  superficial,  in 
matters  of  common  knowledge,  is  a  method  of  instruc- 
tion which  cannot  but  bear  good  fruit. 


CHAPTEK   II. 

HOW  EACH   INDIVIDUAL  ACQUIRES   HIS   LANGUAGE:   LIFE 
OF    LANGUAGE. 

Language  learned,  not  inherited  or  made,  by  the  individual ;  pro- 
cess of  children's  learning  to  speak  ;  what  this  involves,  out- 
side the  province  of  the  linguistic  student.  Origin  of  particu- 
lar words.  Character  of  a  word  as  sign  for  a  conception. 
Mental  training  in  learning  language ;  determination  of  the 
inner  form  of  language  from  without ;  constraint  and  advan- 
tage in  the  process.  Acquisition  of  a  second  language,  or  of 
more  than  one  ;  learning  even  of  native  speech  a  never-ending 
process.  Imperfection  of  the  word  as  sign;  language  only 
the  apparatus  of  thought. 

There  can  be  asked  respecting  language  no  other 
question  of  a  more  elementary  and  at  the  same  time 
of  a  more  fundamentally  important  character  than  this : 
how  is  language  obtained  by  us?  how  does  each  speak- 
ing individual  become  possessed  of  his  speech?  Its 
true  answer  involves  and  determines  well-nigh  the  whole 
of  linguistic  philosophy. 

There  are  probably  few  who  would  not  at  once  re- 
ply that  we  learn  our  language;  it  is  taught  us  by 
those  among  whom  our  lot  is  cast  in  childhood.  And 
this  obvious  and  common-sense  answer  is  also,  as  we 
shall  find  on  a  more  careful  and  considerate  inquiry, 
the  correct  one.  We  have  to  look  to  see  what  is  im- 
plied in  it. 

7 


8  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

In  the  first  place,  it  sets  aside  and  denies  two  other 
conceivable  answers :  that  language  is  a  race-character- 
istic, and,  as  such,  inherited  from  one's  ancestry,  along 
with  color,  physical  constitution,  traits  of  character, 
and  the  like;  and  that  it  is  independently  produced  by 
each  individual,  in  the  natural  course  of  his  bodily  and 
mental  growth. 

Against  both  these  excluded  views  of  the  acquisi- 
tion of  language  may  be  brought  such  an  array  of  facts 
so  familiar  and  undeniable  that  they  cannot  be  serious- 
ly upheld.  Against  the  theory  of  a  language  as  a  race- 
characteristic  may  be  simply  set,  as  sufficient  rebutting 
evidence,  the  existence  of  a  community  like  the  Ameri- 
can, where  there  are  in  abundance  descendants  of 
African,  of  Irish,  of  German,  of  southern  European, 
of  Asiatic,  as  well  as  of  English  ancestors,  all  using 
the  same  dialect,  without  other  variety  than  comes  of 
differences  of  locality  and  education,  none  showing  a 
trace  of  any  other  "  mother-tongue "  or  "  native 
speech."  But  the  world  is  full  of  such  cases,  on  the 
small  scale  and  on  the  large.  Any  child  of  parents  liv- 
ing in  a  foreign  country  grows  up  to  speak  the  foreign 
speech,  unless  carefully  guarded  from  doing  so;  or,  it 
speaks  both  this  and  the  tongue  of  its  parents,  with 
equal  readiness.  The  children  of  missionary  families 
furnish  the  most  striking  examples  of  this  class :  no 
matter  where  they  may  be  in  the  world,  among  what 
remotely  kindred  or  wholly  unrelated  dialects,  they  ac- 
quire the  local  speech  as  "  naturally  "  as  do  the  chil- 
dren of  the  natives.  And  it  is  only  necessary  that  the 
child  of  English  or  German  or  Eussian  parents,  born 
in  their  native  country,  should  (as  is  often  done)  be  put 
with  a  French  nurse,  and  hoar  French  alone  spoken 
about  it,  and  it  will  grow  up  to  speak  French  first  and 


LANGUAGE  NOT  INHERITED.  9 

French  only,  just  as  if  it  were  a  French  child.  And 
what  is  French,  and  who  are  its  speakers?  The  mass 
of  the  people  of  France  are  Celts  by  descent,  with 
characteristic  Celtic  traits  which  no  mixture  or  educa- 
tion has  been  able  to  obliterate;  but  there  is  hardly  an 
appreciable  element  of  Celtic  in  the  French  language; 
this  is  almost  purely  a  Eomanic  dialect,  a  modern  rep- 
resentative of  the  ancient  Latin./  There  are  few  un- 
mixed languages  in  the  world,  as  there  are  few  unmixed 
races;  but  the  one  mixture  does  not  at  all  determine 
the  other,  or  measure  it.  The  English  is  a  very  strik- 
ing proof  of  this;  the  preponderating  French-Latin 
element  in  our  vocabulary  gets  its  most  familiar  and 
indispensable  part  from  the  Normans,  a  Germanic  race, 
who  got  it  from  the  French,  a  Celtic  race,  who  got  it 
from  the  Italians,  among  whom  the  Latin-speaking 
community  were  at  first  a  very  insignificant  element, 
numerically.  It  is  useless  to  bring  up  further  exam- 
ples; the  force  of  those  here  given  will  be  sufficiently 
supported  by  our  later  inquiry  into  the  actual  processes 
of  acquisition  of  language. 

So  far  as  the  other  theory,  that  of  independent  pro- 
duction by  each  person  of  his  own  speech,  implies  that 
each  inherits  from  his  ancestors  a  physical  constitution 
which  makes  him  develop  unconsciously  the  same 
speech  as  theirs,  it  is  virtually  coincident  with  the  first 
theory,  and  the  same  facts  tell  with  crushing  weight 
against  it;  so  far  as  it  is  meant  to  imply  that  there  is 
a  general  likeness  in  intellectual  constitution  between 
members  of  the  same  community  which  leads  them  to 
frame  accordant  systems  of  expression,  it  is  equally 
without  support  from  facts ;  for  the  distribution  of 
human  dialects  is  as  irreconcilable  with  that  of  natural 
capacity  and  bent  as  with  that  of  physical  form  among 
2 


10  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

human  beings.  Every  variety  of  gift  is  found  among 
those  who  employ,  each  with  his  own  degree  of  skill 
and  capacity,  the  same  speech;  and  souls  of  commen- 
surate calibre  in  different  communities  are  unable  to 
have  intercourse  together. 

We  come,  then,  to  consider  directly  the  process  by 
which  the  child  becomes  able  to  speak  a  certain  lan- 
guage— a  process  sufficiently  under  every  one's  obser- 
vation to  allow  of  general  and  competent  criticism  of 
any  attempted  description  of  it.  We  can  not,  it  is  true, 
follow  with  entire  comprehension  all  the  steps  of  evo- 
lution of  the  infantile  and  childish  powers;  but  we  can 
understand  them  well  enough  for  our  purpose. 
Y  The  first  thing  which  the  child  has  to  learn,  before 
speech  is  possible,  is  to  observe  and  distinguish;  to 
recognize  the  persons  and  things  about  him,  in  their 
concrete  individuality,  and  to  notice  as  belonging  to 
them  some  of  their  characteristic  qualities  and  acts. 
This  is  a  very  brief  description  of  a  very  intricate  psy- 
chological process — which,  however,  it  does  not  belong 
to  the  student  of  language  to  draw  out  in  greater  de- 
tail. There  is  involved  in  it,  we  may  further  remark 
in  passing,  nothing  which  some  of  the  lower  animals 
may  not  achieve.  At  the  same  time,  the  child  is  ex- 
ercising his  organs  of  utterance,  and  gaining  conscious 
command  of  them,  partly  by  a  mere  native  impulse  to 
the  exertion  of  all  his  native  powers,  partly  by  imita- 
tion of  the  sound-making  persons  about  him :  the  child 
brought  up  in  solitude  would  be  comparatively  silent. 
This  physical  process  is  quite  analogous  with  the  train- 
ing of  the  hands;  for  some  six  months  the  child  tosses 
them  about,  he  knows  not  how  or  why;  then  he  begins 
to  notice  them  and  work  them  under  command,  till  at 
length  he   can   do  by   conscious   volition   whatever   is 


LEARNING   TO  SPEAK.  H 

within  their  power.  Control  and  management  of  the 
organs  of  utterance  comes  much  more  slowly;  but  the 
time  arrives  when  the  child  can  imitate  at  least  some 
of  the  audible  as  well  as  the  visible  acts  of  others;  can 
reproduce  a  given  sound,  as  a  given  gesture.  But  be- 
fore this,  he  has  learned  to  associate  with  some  of  the 
objects  familiar  to  him  the  names  by  which  they  are 
called;  a  result  of  much  putting  of  the  two  together 
on  the  part  of  his  instructors.  Here  is  seen  more 
markedly,  at  least  in  degree,  the  superiority  of  human 
endowment.  The  association  in  question  is  doubtless 
at  the  outset  no  easy  thing,  even  for  the  child;  he  does 
not  readily  catch  the  idea  that  a  set  of  sounds  belongs 
to  and  represents  a  thing — any  more  than,  when  older, 
the  idea  that  a  series  of  written  characters  represents  a 
word;  but  their  connection  is  set  so  often  and  so  dis- 
tinctly before  him  as  to  be  learned  at  last,  just  as  the 
connection  is  learned  between  sugar  and  pleasure  to 
the  taste,  between  a  rod  and  retribution  for  misbe- 
havior. And  every  child  begins  to  know  things  by 
their  names  long  before  he  begins  to  call  them.  The 
next  step  is  to  imitate  and  reproduce  the  familiar  name, 
usually  at  first  in  the  most  imperfect  way,  by  a  mere 
hint  of  the  true  sound,  intelligible  only  to  the  child's 
constant  attendants;  and  when  that  step  is  taken,  then 
for  the  first  time  is  made  a  real  beginning  of  the  ac- 
quisition of  language. 

Though  not  all  children  start  with  the  acquisition 
of  precisely  the  same  words,  yet  their  limit  of  variety 
is  but  a  narrow  one.  We  may  take  as  fair  examples 
of  at  least  the  very  early  ones  the  childish  names  for 
'  father '  and  '  mother,'  namely  papa  and  mamma,  and 
the  words  water,  milk,  good.  And  we  have  to  notice 
especially   both    how    wholly    external    is    the    process 


12  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

which  makes  the  child  connect  these  particular  names 
with  their  respective  ideas,  and  how  empirical  and  im- 
perfect are  the  ideas  themselves.  What  is  really  im- 
plied in  papa  and  mamma,  the  child  does  not  in  the 
least  know;  to  him  they  are  only  signs  for  certain  lov- 
ing and  caring  individuals,  distinguished  most  con- 
spicuously by  differences  of  dress;  and  the  chance  is 
(and  it  not  seldom  chances)  that  he  will  give  the  same 
names  to  other  individuals  showing  like  differences; 
the  real  relation  of  male  and  female  parent  to  child  he 
conies  to  comprehend  only  much  later — not  to  speak 
of  the  physiological  mysteries  involved  in  it,  which  no 
man  yet  comprehends.  As  little  does  he  understand 
the  real  nature  of  water  and  milk;  he  knows  no  more 
than  that,  among  the  liquids  (that  name,  to  be  sure, 
comes  much  later,  but  not  till  long  after  the  child  has 
realized  the  distinction  of  liquid  and  solid)  constantly 
brought  before  him  there  are  two  which  he  readily  dis- 
tinguishes, by  look  and  by  taste,  and  to  which  other 
people  give  these  names;  and  he  follows  their  example. 
The  names  are  provisional,  convenient  nuclei  for  the 
gathering  of  more  knowledge  about;  where  the  liquids 
come  from  will  be  learned  by  and  by,  and  their  chemi- 
cal constitution,  perhaps,  in  due  time.  As  for  good, 
the  first  association  of  the  term  is  probably  with  what 
has  a  pleasant  taste;  then  what  is  otherwise  agreeable 
comes  to  be  comprehended  under  the  same  name;  it 
gets  applied  to  behavior  which  is  agreeable  to  the  par- 
ents, as  judged  by  a  standard  which  the  child  himself 
is  far  from  understanding — and  this  transfer  to  a  moral 
sphere  is  by  no  means  an  easy  one;  as  he  grows  up, 
the  child  is  (perhaps)  all  the  time  learning  to  distin- 
guish more  accurately  between  good  and  bad;  but  he 
is  likely  to  be  at  the  last  baffled  by  finding  that  the 


LEARNING  TO  SPEAK.  13 

wisest  heads  in  the  world  have  been  and  are  irrecon- 
cilably at  variance  as  to  what  good  really  means — 
whether  it  implies  only  utility,  or  an  independent  and 
absolute  principle. 

These  are  only  typical  examples,  fairly  illustrating 
the  whole  process  of  speech-getting.  The  child  begins 
as  a  learner,  and  he  continues  such.  There  is  continu- 
ally in  presence  of  his  intellect  more  and  better  than 
he  can  grasp.  By  words  he  is  made  to  form  dim  con- 
ceptions, and  draw  rude  distinctions,  which  after  ex- 
perience shall  make  truer  and  more  distinct,  shall 
deepen,  explain,  correct.  He  has  no  time  to  be  origi- 
nal; far  more  rapidly  than  his  crude  and  confused  im- 
pressions can  crystallize  independently  into  shape,  they 
are,  under  the  example  and  instruction  of  others,  cen- 
tred and  shaped  about  certain  definite  points.  So  it 
goes  on  indefinitely.  The  young  mind  is  always  learn- 
ing words,  and  things  through  words ;  in  all  other  cases 
as  really,  if  not  so  obviously,  as  when,  by  description 
and  picture  or  by  map  and  plan,  it  is  led  to  form  some 
inaccurate  half-conception  of  the  animal  lion  or  the 
city  Pehing.  The  formal  distinctions  made  by  the  in- 
flectional system  of  even  so  simple  a  language  as  Eng- 
lish, and  by  words  of  relation,  are  at  first  out  of  the 
child's  reach.  He  can  grasp  and  wield  only  the  grosser 
elements  of  speech.  He  does  not  apprehend  the  rela- 
tion of  one  and  more  than  one  clearly  enough  to  use 
the  two  numbers  of  nouns;  the  singular  has  to  do  duty 
for  both;  and  so  also  the  root-form  of  the  verb,  to  the 
neglect  of  persons,  tenses,  and  moods.  It  is  an  era  in 
his  education  when  he  first  begins  to  employ  preterits 
and  plurals  and  their  like.  So  with  the  pronouns.  He 
is  slow  to  catch  the  trick  of  those  shifting  names,  ap- 
plied to  persons  according  as  they  are  speaking,  spoken 


14  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

to,  or  spoken  of;  he  does  not  see  why  each  should  not 
have  an  own  name,  given  alike  in  all  situations :  and  he 
speaks  of  himself  and  others  by  such  a  name  and  such 
only,  or  blunders  sorely  in  trying  to  do  otherwise — 
till  time  and  practice  set  him  right.*  Thus,  in  every 
respect,  language  is  the  expression  of  matured  and 
practised  thought,  and  the  young  learner  enters  into 
the  use  of  it  as  fast  as  natural  capacity  and  favoring 
circumstances  enable  him  to  do  so.  Others  have  ob- 
served, and  classified,  and  abstracted;  he  only  reaps 
the  fruit  of  their  labors.  It  is  precisely  as  when  the 
child  studies  mathematics;  he  goes  over  and  appropri- 
ates, step  by  step,  what  others  have  wrought  out,  by 
means  of  word  and  sign  and  symbol;  and  he  thus 
masters  in  a  few  years  what  it  has  taken  generations 
and  ages  to  produce,  what  his  unaided  intellect  could 
never  have  produced;  what,  perhaps,  he  could  never 
independently  have  produced  a  single  item  of,  having 
just  mental  force  enough  to  follow  and  acquire  it : 
though  also,  perhaps,  he  has  capacity  to  increase  it  by 
and  by,  adding  something  new  for  those  to  learn  who 
come  after  him — even  as  the  once  educated  speaker 
may  come  to  add,  in  one  way  and  another  (as  will  be 
pointed  out  later),  new  stores  of  expression  to  language. 
In  all  this,  now,  is  involved  infinitely  more  than 
linguistic  science  has  any  call  to  deal  with  and  explain. 
Let  us  consider,  for  example,  the  word  green.  Its  pres- 
ence in  our  vocabulary  implies  first  the  physical  cause 
of  the  color,  wherein  is  involved  the  whole  theory  of 
optics:  and  this  concerns  the  physicist;  it  is  for  him 
to  talk  of  the  ether  and  its  vibrations,  and  of  the  fre- 

*  The  amount  of  sapient  philosophy  which  has  been  aimlessly  ex- 
pended on  this  simple  fact — as  if  it  involved  the  metaphysical  dis- 
tinction of  the  ego  and  the  non-ego — is  something  truly  surprising. 


WHAT  IS  INVOLVED  IN  SPEAKING.  15 

quency  and  length  of  the  waves  which  produce  the 
sensation  of  greenness.  Then  there  is  the  structure 
of  the  eye:  its  wondrous  and  mysterious  sensitiveness 
to  just  this  kind  of  vibration,  the  apparatus  of  nerves 
which  conveys  the  impression  to  the  brain,  the  cere- 
bral structure  which  receives  the  impression:  to  treat 
of  all  this  is  the  duty  of  the  physiologist.  His  domain 
borders  and  overlaps  that  of  the  psychologist,  who  has 
to  tell  us  what  he  can  of  the  intuition  and  resulting 
conception,  considered  as  mode  and  product  of  mental 
action,  of  the  power  of  apprehension  and  distinction 
and  abstraction,  and  of  the  sway  of  consciousness  over 
the  whole.  Then,  in  the  hearing  of  the  word  green  is 
involved  the  wonderful  power  of  audition,  closely  akin 
with  that  of  vision:  another  sensitive  apparatus,  which 
notes  and  reports  another  set  of  vibratory  waves,  in 
another  vibrating  medium :  it  falls,  like  vision,  into  the 
hands  of  the  physicist  and  physiologist.  They,  too, 
have  to  do  with  the  organs  of  utterance,  which  produce 
the  audible  vibration;  with  their  obedience  to  the  di- 
rections of  the  will:  directions  given  but  not  executed 
under  the  review  of  consciousness,  and  implying  that 
control  of  the  mind  over  the  muscular  apparatus  of  the 
body  which  is  by  no  means  the  least  of  mysteries.  We 
might  go  on  indefinitely  thus,  noticing  what  is  included 
in  the  simplest  linguistic  act;  and  behind  all  would  lie 
as  a  background  the  great  mystery  of  existence  and  its 
cause,  which  no  philosophy  has  yet  been  able  to  do 
more  than  recognize.  Every  part  of  this  is  of  interest 
and  importance  to  the  linguistic  scholar,  but  each  in 
its  own  way  and  degree;  and  his  specific  and  central 
business  is  with  none  of  it,  but  rather  with  something 
else.  This,  namely:  there  exists  an  uttered  and  audi- 
ble sign,  green,  by  which,  in  a  certain  community,  are 


16  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

designated  a  certain  class  of  kindred  shades  among  the 
infinitely  varied  hues  of  nature  and  of  art;  and. every 
person  who,  by  birth  or  by  immigration  or  as  a  visitor 
(a  bodily  visitor,  or  only  a  mental  one,  as  student  of  its 
literature),  comes  into  the  community  in  question, 
learns  to  associate  that  sign  with  the  given  group  of 
shades,  and  to  understand  and  employ  it  as  designat- 
ing them;  and  he  learns  to  classify  the  infinity  of  hues 
under  that  and  certain  other  signs,  of  like  nature  and 
use.  About  this  pivotal  fact  all  the  other  matters  in- 
volved fall  into  position  as  more  or  less  nearly  auxil- 
iary; from  it  as  point  of  view  they  are  judged  and  have 
their  value  estimated.  Language,  both  in  its  single 
items  and  as  a  whole,  is  primarily  the  sign  of  the  idea, 
the  sign  with  its  accompanying  idea;  and  to  take  any 
other  department  of  the  questions  involved  as  the  cen- 
tral one  is  to  throw  the  whole  into  a  false  position,  dis- 
torting the  proportions  and  relations  of  every  part. 
And,  as  the  science  of  language  seeks  after  causes,  en- 
deavors to  explain  the  facts  of  language,  the  primary 
inquiry  respecting  this  fact  is :  how  came  this  sign  to 
be  thus  used?  what  is  the  history  of  its  production  and 
application?  and  even,  what  is  its  ultimate  origin  and 
the  reason  of  it  ?  provided  we  can  reach  so  far. 

For  there  is,  recognizably  and  traceably,  a  time 
when  and  a  reason  why  many  of  our  words  came  into 
use  as  signs  for  the  ideas  they  represent.  For  exam- 
ple, a  certain  other  shade  of  color,  a  peculiar  red,  was 
produced  (with  more,  of  its  kind)  not  many  years  ago, 
as  result  of  the  chemical  manipulation  of  coal  tar,  and 
was,  reflectively  and  artificially,  called  by  its  inventor 
magenta,  after  the  name  of  a  place  which  a  great  battle 
had  recently  made  famous.  The  word  magenta  is  just 
as  real  and  legitimate  a  part  of  the  English  language 


HISTORY  OP  WORDS.  If 

as  green,  though  vastly  younger  and  less  important; 
and  those  who  acquire  and  use  the  latter  do  so  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  manner  as  the  former,  and  generally 
with  equal  ignorance  and  unconcern  as  to  its  origin. 
The  word  gas  is  of  much  longer  standing  and  wider  use 
with  us,  and  has  its  respectable  family  of  derivatives 
and  compounds — as  gaseous,  gasify,  gas-pipe — and  even 
its  colloquial  figurative  uses — as  when  we  call  an  empty 
and  sophistical  but  ready  talker  gassy;  but  it  was  the 
wholly  arbitrary  invention  of  a  Dutch  chemist  (Van 
Helmont),  about  a.  d.  1600.  Science  was  at  that  time 
getting  so  far  along  as  to  begin  to  form  the  distinct 
conception  of  an  aeriform  or  gaseous  condition  of  exist- 
ence of  matter;  and  this  name  chanced  to  be  intro- 
duced and  supported  in  a  way  that  commended  it  to 
general  acceptance;  and  so  it  became  the  name,  and 
for  all  Europe.  The  young  now  for  the  most  part 
know  it  first  as  the  title  of  a  certain  kind  of  gas,  made 
practically  useful  in  giving  light;  but  by  and  by,  if 
fairly  educated,  they  are  led  in  connection  with  the 
word  t©  form  for  themselves  the  scientific  idea  of  which 
this  is  the  sign.  To  trace  the  history  of  these  two  vo- 
cables is  to  inform  ourselves  as  to  the  time  and  the  cir- 
cumstances of  production  of  the  aniline  colors,  and  as 
to  the  taking  of  a  certain  important  step  forward  in 
scientific  thinking.  We  cannot  follow  so  clearly  to- 
ward or  to  its  source  the  word  green,  because  it  is  vastly 
older,  reaching  back  far  beyond  the  period  of  literary 
record;  but  we  do  seem  to  arrive  by  inference  at  a  con- 
nection of  it  with  our  word  grow,  and  at  seeing  that  a 
green  thing  was  named  from  its  being  a  growing  thing ; 
and  this  is  a  matter  of  no  small  interest  as  bearing  on 
the  history  of  the  word. 

It  is  not  the  place  here  to  follow  up  this  line  of  in- 


18  ACQUISITION  OF   LANGUAGE. 

quiries,  and  see  what  is  meant  by  etymologizing,  or 
tracing  the  history  of  words  toward  their  origin;  the 
subject  is  one  which  will  occupy  us  more  properly  later. 
We  touch  it  in  passing  merely  in  order  to  note  that  the 
reason  of  first  attribution  of  a  sign  to  its  specific  use 
is  one  thing,  and  that  the  reason  of  its  after  employ- 
ment in  that  use  is  another  and  a  very  different  thing. 
To  the  child  learning  to  speak,  all  signs  are  in  them- 
selves equally  good  for  all  things;  he  could  acquire 
and  reproduce  one  as  well  as  another  for  a  given  pur- 
pose. In  fact,  children  in  different  communities  do 
learn  every  possible  variety  of  names  for  the  same 
thing:  instead  of  green,  the  German  child  learns  griln, 
the  Dutch  groen,  the  Swedish  grbn — all  related  to  our 
green,  yet  not  identical  with  it;  and  the  French  child 
learns  vert,  the  Spanish  verde, the  Italian  viride — a  simi- 
lar group  of  related  yet  diverse  names;  while  the  Rus- 
sian says  zeleniii,  the  Hungarian  zold,  the  Turk  ishil, 
the  Arab  akhsar,  and  so  on.  Each  of  these,  and  of  hun- 
dreds of  others,  is  obtained  in  the  same  way :  the  child 
hears  it  uttered  by  those  about  him  under  such  circum- 
stances as  make  plain  to  him  what  it  signifies;  by  its 
aid  he  in  part  learns  to  abstract  the  quality  of  color 
from  the  colored  object  and  conceive  it  separately;  and 
he  learns  to  combine  in  one  comprehensive  conception 
the  different  shades  of  green,  distinguishing  them  to- 
gether from  the  other  colors,  as  blue  and  yellow,  into 
which  they  pass  by  insensible  gradations.  The  learner 
grasps  the  conception,  at  least  in  a  measure,  and  then 
associates  his  own  word  with  it  by  a  purely  external  tie, 
having  been  able,  if  so  guided,  to  form  the  same  asso- 
ciation with  any  other  existing  or  possible  word,  and 
not  less  easily  and  surely.  An  internal  and  necessary 
tie  between  word  and  idea  is  absolutely  non-existent  for 


WORDS  ARBITRARY   AND  CONVENTIONAL.       19 

him;  and  whatever  historical  reason  there  may  be  is 
also  non-existent  to  his  sense.  He  may  sometimes  ask 
"  what  for  ?  "  about  a  word,  as  he  does,  in  his  childish 
curiosity,  about  everything  else;  but  it  makes  no  differ- 
ence with  the  young  etymologist  (any  more  than  with 
the  older  one)  what  answer  he  gets,  or  whether  he  gets 
an  answer;  to  him,  the  sole  and  sufficient  reason  why  he 
should  use  this  particular  sign  is  that  it  is  used  by  those 
about  him.  In  the  true  and  proper  meaning  of  the 
terms,  then,  every  word  handed  down  in  every  human 
language  is  an  arbitrary  and  conventional  sign:  arbi- 
trary, because  any  one  of  the  thousand  other  words  cur- 
rent among  men,  or  of  the  tens  of  thousands  which  might 
be  fabricated,  could  have  been  equally  well  learned  and 
applied  to  this  particular  purpose;  conventional,  because 
the  reason  for  the  use  of  this  rather  than  another  lies 
solely  in  the  fact  that  it  is  already  used  in  the  com- 
munity to  which  the  speaker  belongs.  The  word  exists 
0«ra,  '  by  attribution,'  and  not  <f>vo-et,  '  by  nature/  in 
the  sense  that  there  is,  either  in  the  nature  of  things  in 
general,  or  in  the  nature  of  the  individual  speaker  who 
uses  it,  any  reason  that  prescribes  and  determines  it. 
"^  There  is  obviously  mental  training  and  shaping,  as 
well  as  mental  equipment,  in  the  process  of  learning  to 
speak.  The  mental  action  of  the  individual  is  schooled 
into  certain  habits,  consonant  with  those  of  his  com- 
munity; he  acquires  the  current  classifications  and  ab- 
stractions and  ways  of  looking  at  things.  To  take  an 
example :  the  quality  of  color  is  so  conspicuous,  and 
our  apprehension  of  it  so  urged  by  the  infinity  of  its 
manifested  differences  which  are  ever  before  our  eyes, 
that'  the  conception  of  color  is  only  quickened  and  ren- 
dered more  distinct  by  acquisition  of  the  words  which 
denote  it.    But  in  the  classification  of  the  shades  of  hue 


20  ACQUISITION  OP  LANGUAGE. 

the  phraseology  of  the  language  acquired  bears  a  deter- 
mining part;  they  fall  into  order  under  and  about  the 
leading  names,  as  white,  black,  red,  blue,  green;  and 
each  hue  is  tested  in  the  mind  by  aid  of  these,  and  re- 
ferred to  the  one  or  the  other  class.  And  different 
languages  make  different  classifications:  some  of  them 
so  unlike  ours,  so  much  less  elaborate  and  complete, 
that  their  acquisition  gives  the  eye  and  mind  a  very 
inferior  training  in  distinguishing  colors.  This  is  still 
more  strikingly  the  case  as  regards  number.  There 
are  dialects  which  are  in  a  state  of  infantile  bewilder- 
ment before  the  problem  of  numeration;  they  have 
words  for  '  one/  '  two,'  and  '  three ; '  but  all  beyond  is 
an  undivided  '  many.'  None  of  us,  it  is  tolerably  cer- 
tain, would  ever  have  gone  farther  than  that  by  his 
own  absolutely  unassisted  efforts;  but  by  words — and 
only  by  words;  for  such  is  the  abstractness  of  the  rela- 
tions of  number  that  they,  more  than  any  others,  are 
dependent  for  their  realization  and  manageableness  on 
expression — more  and  more  intricate  numerical  rela- 
tions have  been  mastered  by  us,  until  finally  we  are 
provided  with  a  system  which  is  extensible  to  every 
thing  short  of  infinity — the  decimal  system,  namely,  or 
that  which  proceeds  by  constant  additions  of  ten  indi- 
viduals of  any  given  denomination  to  form  the  next 
higher.  And  what  is  the  foundation  of  this  system? 
Why,  as  every  one  knows,  the  simple  fact  that  we  have 
ten  fingers  ("  digits  ")  on  our  two  hands;  and  that  fin- 
gers are  the  handiest  substitutes  for  figures,  the  most 
ready  and  natural  of  aids  to  an  unready  reckoner.  A 
fact  as  external  and  physical  as  this,  and  seemingly  so 
trivial,  has  shaped  the  whole  science  of  mathematics, 
and,  altogether  without  his  being  aware  of  it,  gives 
form  to  all  the  numerical   conceptions  of  each   new 


MENTAL   TRAINING  BY  LANGUAGE.  21 

learner.  It  is  a  suggestion  of  general  human  experi- 
ence in  the  past,  transmitted  through  language  into  a 
law  for  the  government  of  thought  in  the  future. 

The  same,  in  varying  way  and  measure,  is  true  of 
every  part  of  language.  All  through  the  world  of 
matter  and  of  mind,  our  predecessors,  with  such  wis- 
dom as  they  had  at  command,  have  gone  observing,  de- 
ducing, and  classifying;  and  we  inherit  in  and  through 
language  the  results  of  their  wisdom.  So  with  the  dis- 
tinctions of  living  and  lifeless;  of  animal  and  vege- 
table and  mineral;  of  fish  and  reptile  and  bird  and  in- 
sect; of  tree  and  bush  and  herb;  of  rock  and  pebble 
and  sand  and  dust.  So  with  those  of  body,  life,  mind, 
spirit,  soul,  and  their  kindred.  So  with  the  qualities 
of  objects,  both  physical  and  moral,  and  with  their  re- 
lations, through  the  whole  round  of  the  categories : 
position  and  succession,  form  and  size,  manner  and  de- 
gree: all,  in  their  indefinite  multitude,  are  divided  and 
grouped,  like  the  shades  of  color,  and  each  group  has 
its  own  sign,  to  guide  the  apprehension  and  help  the 
discrimination  of  him  who  uses  it.  So,  once  more, 
with  the  apparatus  of  logical  statement:  the  ability  to 
put  a  subject  and  predicate  closely  together,  and  to  test 
their  correspondence  by  repeated  comparison,  comes 
only  by  language;  and  it  is  the  fruitful  means  where- 
by old  cognitions  are  corrected  and  new  ones  attained. 
So,  in  fine,  with  the  auxiliary  apparatus  of  inflections 
and  form-words,  wherein  various  tongues  are  most  of 
all  discordant,  each  making  its  own  selection  of  what  it 
will  express  and  what  it  will  leave  for  the  mind  to  un- 
derstand without  expression. 

Every  single  language  has  thus  its  own  peculiar 
framework  of  established  distinctions,  its  shapes  and 
forms  of  thought,  into  which,  for  the  human  being  who 


22  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

learns  that  language  as  his  "  mother-tongue,"  is  cast 
the  content  and  product  of  his  mind,  his  store  of  im- 
pressions, however  acquired,  his  experience  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  world.  This  is  what  is  sometimes  called 
the  "  inner  form  "  of  language — the  shape  and  cast  of 
thought,  as  fitted  to  a  certain  body  of  expression. 
But  it  comes  as  the  result  of  external  influence;  it  is 
an  accompaniment  of  the  process  by  which  the  indi- 
vidual acquires  the  body  of  expression  itself;  it  is  not 
a  product  of  his  internal  forces,  in  their  free  and  undi- 
rected workings;  it  is  something  imposed  from  with- 
out. It  amounts  simply  to  this:  that  the  mind  which 
was  capable  of  doing  otherwise  has  been  led  to  view 
things  in  this  particular  way,  to  group  them  in  a  cer- 
tain manner,  to  contemplate  them  consciously  in  these 
and  those  relations. 

There  is  thus  an  element  of  constraint  in  language- 
learning.  But  it  is  an  element  of  which  the  learner  is 
wholly  unconscious.  Whatever  language  he  first  ac- 
quires, this  is  to  him  the  natural  and  necessary  way  of 
thinking  and  speaking;  he  conceives  of  no  other  as 
even  possible.  The  case  could  not  be  otherwise.  For 
even  the  poorest  language  in  existence  is  so  much  bet- 
ter than  any  one's  powers  could  have  produced  unaided, 
that  its  acquisition  would  imply  a  greatly  accelerated 
drawing  out  and  training  of  the  powers  of  even  the 
most  gifted  being;  the  advantage  is  so  great  that  the 
disadvantage  entirely  disappears  before  it.  We,  to  be 
sure,  looking  on  from  without,  can  sometimes  find  rea- 
son for  regret,  saying :  "  Here  is  a  man  of  capacities 
far  beyond  the  average  of  the  degraded  community  of 
which  he  is  a  member ;  in  justice  to  those  capacities, 
he  should  have  had  his  birth  where  a  higher  language 
would  have  developed  them  into  what  they  were  able 


ADVANTAGE  IN  THE  USE  OF  LANGUAGE.   23 

to  become ;  only,"  we  should  have  to  add,  "  this  bar- 
barian tongue  raises  him  far  above  what  he  could  have 
become  had  he  never  learned  to  speak  at  all."  More- 
over, it  is  far  oftener  the  case  that  the  individual's  lin- 
guistic lot  is  beyond  his  deserts;  that  he  acquires  a 
language  above  his  level,  and  would  have  been  better 
fitted  by  a  lower  dialect. 

It  is  not  easy  to  over-estimate  the  advantage  won  by 
the  mind  in  the  obtaining  of  a  language.  Its  confused 
impressions  are  thus  reduced  to  order,  brought  under 
the  distinct  review  of  consciousness  and  within  reach 
of  reflection;  an  apparatus  is  provided  with  which  it 
can  work,  like  the  artisan  with  his  tools.  There  is  no 
other  parallel  so  close,  as  regards  both  the  kind  and  the 
degree  of  assistance  afforded,  as  this  between  words, 
the  instruments  of  thought,  and  those  other  instru- 
ments, the  creation  and  the  aids  of  man's  manual  dex- 
terity. By  as  much  as,  supplied  with  these,  man  can 
traverse  space,  handle  and  shape  materials,  frame  text- 
ures, penetrate  distance,  observe  the  minute,  beyond 
what  he  could  compass  with  his  unequipped  physical 
powers,  by  so  much  is  the  reach  and  grasp,  the  pene- 
tration and  accuracy,  of  his  thought  increased  by  speech. 
This  part  of  the  value  of  speech  is  by  no  means  easy 
to  bring  to  full  realization,  because  our  minds  are  so 
used  to  working  by  and  through-  words  that  they  can- 
not even  conceive  of  the  plight  they  would  be  in  if  de- 
prived of  such  helps.  But  we  "may  think,  for  example, 
of  what  the  mathematician  would  be  without  figures 
and  symbols. 

In  respect  to  this  general  training  and  equipment 
of  the  mind  for  work,  the  first  acquisition  of  a  lan- 
guage does  for  the  individual  what  can  never  be  re- 
peated later.    When  we  first  take  hold  of  an  additional 


24  ACQUISITION  OP  LANGUAGE. 

language,  we  cannot  help  translating  its  signs  into 
those  we  already  know ;  the  peculiarities  of  its  "  inner 
form,"  the  non-identity  and  incommensurability  of  its 
shaped  and  grouped  ideas  with  those  of  our  native 
speech,  escape  our  notice.  As  we  gain  familiarity  with 
it,  as  our  conceptions  adapt  themselves  to  its  frame- 
work and  operate  directly  through  it,  we  come  to  see 
that  our  thoughts  are  cast  by  it  into  new  shapes,  that 
its  phraseology  is  its  own  and  inconvertible.  Perhaps 
it  is  here  that  we  get  our  most  distinct  hint  of  the  ele- 
ment of  constraint  in  language-learning.  Certainly, 
the  exceptionally-gifted  Polynesian  or  African  who 
should  learn  a  European  language — as  English,  French, 
German — would  find  himself  prepared  for  labor  in  de- 
partments of  mental  action  which  had  before  been  in- 
accessible to  him,  and  would  realize  how  his  powers 
had  been  balked  of  their  best  action  by  the  possession 
of  only  the  inferior  instrument.  The  scholars  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  who  employed  the  Latin  for  the  expres- 
sion of  their  higher  thought,  did  so  partly  because  the 
popular  dialects  had  not  yet  become  enriched  to  a  ca- 
pacity for  aiding  the  production  of  such  thought  and 
for  expressing  it. 

But  in  all  other  respects,  the  learning  of  a  second 
language  is  precisely  the  same  process  as  the  learning 
of  a  first,  of  one's  own  "  mother-tongue."  It  is  the 
memorizing  of  a  certain  body  of  signs  for  conceptions 
and  their  relations,  used  in  a  certain  community,  exist- 
ing or  extinct — signs  which  have  no  more  natural  and 
necessary  connection  with  the  conceptions  they  indicate 
than  our  own  have,  but  are  equally  arbitrary  and  con- 
ventional with  the  latter;  and  of  which  we  may  make 
ourselves  masters  to  a  degree  dependent  only  on  our 
opportunities,  our  capacity,  our  industry,  and  the  length 


ss. 


LANGUAGE-LEARNING  AN  ENDLESS  PROCESS.     25 

of  time  devoted  to  the  work;  even  coming  to"  substi- 
tute, if  circumstances  favor,  the  second  language  in  our 
constant  and  ready  use,  and  to  become  unfamiliar  with 
and  forget  its  predecessor. 

We  realize  better  in  the  case  of  a  second  or  "  for- 
eign," than  in  that  of  a  first  or  "  native "  language, 
that  the  process  of  acquisition  is  a  never-ending  one; 
but  it  is  not  more  true  of  the  one  than  of  the  other. 
We  say,  to  be  sure,  of  a  child  who  has  reached  a  cer- 
tain grade  that  he  "  has  learned  to  speak ; "  but  we 
mean  by  this  only  that  he  has  acquired  a  limited  num- 
ber of  signs,  sufficient  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  the 
childish  life,  together  with  the  power,  by  much  prac- 
tice, of  wielding  them  with  adroitness  and  general  cor- 
rectness. There  are,  probably,  only  a  few  hundred 
such  signs,  all  told;  and  outside  their  circle,  the  Eng- 
lish is  as  much  an  unknown  language  to  the  child  as  is 
German,  or  Chinese,  or  Choctaw.  Even  ideas  which 
he  is  fully, able  to  grasp  when  put  into  his  acquired 
phraseology  are  unintelligible  if  expressed  as  grown-up 
men  would  naturally  write  them;  they  must  be  trans- 
lated into  childish  phrase.  What  he  has  is  especially 
the  central  core  of  language,  as  we  may  call  it :  signs 
for  the  most  commonly  recurring  conceptions,  words 
which  every  speaker  uses  every  day.  As  he  grows 
older,  as  his  powers  develop  and  his  knowledge  in- 
creases, he  acquires  more  and  more;  and  in  different 
departments,  according  to  circumstances.  He  who  has 
to  turn  at  once  to  the  hard  work  of  life  may  add  to  the 
first  childish  store  little  besides  the  technical  expres- 
sions belonging  to  his  own  narrow  vocation;  he,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  devotes  years  to  the  sole  work  of 
getting  himself  educated,  and  continues  to  draw  in 
knowledge  through  the  rest  of  his  life,  appropriates 
9 


26  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

constantly  larger  stores,  and  rises  to  higher  styles  of  ex- 
pression. The  ordinary  vocabulary  of  the  educated,  in- 
cluding a  great  variety  of  the  technical  terms  of  special 
branches  of  knowledge  with  which  the  educated  man 
must  have  at  least  a  degree  of  acquaintance,  he  may 
come  to  understand  and  to  use  with  intelligence;  but 
there  will  be  whole  bodies  of  English  expression  which 
he  cannot  wield,  as  well  as  styles  to  which  he  does 
not  attain.  The  vocabulary  of  a  rich  and  long-culti- 
vated language  like  the  English  may  be  roughly  esti- 
mated at  about  100,000  words  (although  this  excludes  a 
great  deal  which,  if  "  English  "  were  understood  in  its 
widest  sense,  would  have  to  be  counted  in) ;  but  thirty 
thousand  is  a  very  large  estimate  for  the  number  ever 
used,  in  writing  or  speaking,  by  a  well-educated  man; 
three  to  five  thousand,  it  has  been  carefully  estimated, 
cover  the  ordinary  needs  of  cultivated  intercourse; 
and  the  number  acquired  by  persons  of  lowest  training 
and  narrowest  information  is  considerably  less  than 
this.  Nowhere  more  clearly  than  here  does  it  appear 
that  one  gets  his  language  by  a  process  of  learning,  and 
only  thus;  for  all  this  gradual  increase  of  one's  lin- 
guistic resources  goes  on  in  the  most  openly  external 
fashion,  by  dint  of  hearing  and  reading  and  study;  and 
it  is  obviously  only  a  continuation,  under  somewhat 
changed  circumstances,  of  the  process  of  acquisition  of 
the  first  nucleus;  while  the  whole  is  parallel  to  the  be- 
ginning and  growth  of  one's  command  of  a  "  foreign  " 
tongue. 

The  same  thing,  however,  appears  clearly  enough, 
if  we  consider  more  narrowly  the  somewhat  shifting 
relations  between  our  linguistic  signs  and  the  concep- 
tions for  which  they  stand.  The  relation  is  established 
at  first  by  a  tentative  process,  liable  to  error  and  sub- 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  CLASSIFICATION.  27 

ject  to  amendment.  The  child  finds  out  very  soon  that 
names  do  not  in  general  belong  to  single  objects  alone, 
but  rather  to  classes  of  related  objects;  and  his  power 
of  noting  resemblances  and  differences,  the  most  fun- 
damental activity  of  intellect,  is  from  the  first  called 
into  lively  action  and  trained  by  the  constant  necessity 
of  applying  names  rightly.  But  the  classes  are  of  every 
variety  of  extent,  and  in  part  determined  by  obscure 
and  perplexing  criteria.  We  have  noted  already  the 
natural  and  frequent  childish  error  of  using  papa  and 
mamma  in  the  sense  of  '  man '  and  '  woman ; '  the  child 
is  puzzled,  by  and  by,  by  finding  that  there  are  other 
papas  and  mammas,  though  he  must  not  call  them  so. 
An  older  child  he  learns  to  call,  for  example,  George; 
but  he  finds  that  he  must  not  say  George  of  other  kin- 
dred beings;  there  is  another  word,  boy,  for  that  use. 
But  then,  again,  he  makes  acquaintance  with  still  other 
Georges;  and  to  find  the  tie  that  binds  them  into  a 
class  together  is  a  problem  quite  beyond  his  powers. 
A  variety  of  creatures  of  very  diverse  appearance  he 
learns  to  call  dog;  but  he  may  not  take  the  same  lib- 
erty with  horse;  though  mules  and  donkeys  are  much 
more  like  horses  than  greyhounds  and  lapdogs  are  like 
terriers,  they  must  be  carefully  distinguished  in  appel- 
lation. A  sun  in  a  picture  is  still  a  sun;  and  in  a  culti- 
vated community  the  child  soon  gets  his  imagination 
trained  to  recognize  the  pictured  representations  of 
things,  and  to  call  them  by  the  same  names,  while 
still  distinctly  aware  of  the  relation  between  thing  and 
picture ;  while  a  grown-up  untutored  savage  is  com- 
pletely baffled  by  such  a  counterfeit,  seeing  in  it  only  a 
confusion  of  lines  and  scratches.  A  toy  house  or  tree 
is  to  have  the  title  house  or  tree;  but  a  kind  of  toy  hu- 
man being  has  the  specific  name  of  doll.     The  words 


28  ACQUISITION   OF  LANGUAGE. 

of  degree  have  their  peculiarities  of  application :  near 
is  sometimes  at  an  inch  of  distance,  sometimes  at  a 
rod;  a  big  apple  is  not  nearly  so  big  as  a  little  house; 
a  long  time  means  a  few  minutes  or  a  few  years.  The 
inconsistencies  of  expression  are  numberless;  and  till 
added  experience  explains  them,  there  is  room  for  mis- 
apprehensions and  blunders.  Moreover,  there  are  cases 
in  which  the  difficulty  is  much  more  persistent,  or  is 
never  wholly  removed.  Fish  even  adult  apprehension 
makes  to  include  whales  and  dolphins,  till  scientific 
knowledge  points  out  a  fundamental  difference  as  un- 
derlying the  superficial  resemblance. 

But  it  is  especially  in  regard  to  matters  of  which 
the  knowledge  is  won  in  a  more  artificial  way,  that  the 
beginner's  ideas  are  vague  and  insufficient.  For  ex- 
ample, children  are  apt  to  be  taught  the  names  and 
definitions  of  geographical  objects  and  relations  with- 
out gaining  any  real  comprehension  of  what  it  all 
means;  a  map,  a  more  unintelligible  kind  of  picture,  is 
little  better  than  a  puzzle;  and  even  older  children,  or 
grown  men,  have  defective  conceptions  which  are  only 
rectified  by  exceptional  experience  in  after-life.  Locali- 
ties, of  course,  are  most  incorrectly  imagined  by  those 
who  have  not  seen  them.  Of  Sedan,  Peking,  Hawaii, 
Chimborazo,  every  well-instructed  person  knows  enough 
to  be  able  to  talk  about  them;  but  how  imperfectly  do 
we  conceive  them,  as  compared  with  one  who  has  lived 
at  or  near  them!  We  have  to  be  extremely  careful,  in 
teaching  the  young,  not  to  push  them  on  too  rapidly, 
lest  we  prove  to  have  been  building  up  a  mere  artificial 
and  empty  structure  of  names,  without  real  enlighten- 
ment. And  yet,  something  of  this  is  unavoidable,  a 
necessary  incident  of  instruction.  A  host  of  grand  con- 
ceptions are  put  before  the  youthful  mind,  and  kept 


IMPERFECTION  OP  LANGUAGE.  29 

there  by  a  paltry  association  or  two,  while  it  is  left  for 
after-development  to  fill  them  out  to  more  nearly  their 
true  value.  The  child  is  ludicrously  unable  at  first  to 
know  what  is  meant  by  God,  or  good,  or  duty,  or  con- 
science, or  the  world,  even  as  sun  and  moon,  weight 
and  color,  involve  infinitely  more  than  he  has  an  ink- 
ling of;  but  the  word,  in  each  case,  gives  him  a  definite 
nucleus,  about  which  more  and  ever  more  knowledge 
may  be  grouped;  he  makes  a  constant  approach  toward 
the  right  conception,  even  if  it  be  one  to  which  no  hu- 
man wisdom  has  yet  attained.  For  the  condition  of 
the  child,  after  all,  differs  only  in  degree  from  that  of 
the  man,  and  in  no  very  great  degree.  Our  words  are 
too  often  signs  for  crude  and  hasty,  for  indefinite  and 
indefinable,  generalizations.  We  use  them  accurately 
enough  for  the  ordinary  practical  purposes  of  life;  and 
most  of  mankind  go  through  life  content  with  that,  let- 
ting instruction  and  experience  bring  what  improve- 
ment they  may;  few  have  the  independence,  even  if 
they  had  the  time  and  ability,  to  test  every  name  to 
the  bottom,  drawing  precise  limits  about  each.  For 
the  most  part,  we  are  loose  thinkers  and  loose  talkers, 
misled  into  error  in  an  infinity  of  cases  by  our  igno- 
rance of  the  terms  we  glibly  use.  But  even  the  wisest 
and  most  thorough  of  us  is  met  by  the  impossibility  of 
giving  to  speech  a  preciseness  of  definition  which  should 
exclude  misunderstanding  and  unsound  reasoning — es- 
pecially as  to  matters  of  subjective  import,  where  it  is 
hard  to  bring  conceptions  to  a  sharp  test.  And  so  the 
differences  of  view,  even  of  philosophers,  take  on  the 
form  of  verbal  questions,  controversies  hinge  on  the 
interpretation  of  a  term,  and  every  writer  who  aims  at 
exactness  has  to  begin  with  definitions — to  which,  then, 
he  finds  it  impossible  to  be  faithful;  some  antagonist 


30  ACQUISITION  OF  LANGUAGE. 

or  successor,  perhaps,  shows  him  to  have  failed  of  ex- 
actness at  a  critical  point,  and  tumbles  into  ruins  the 
whole  magnificent  structure  of  fancied  truth  which  he 
had  erected. 

We  see  from  all  this,  it  may  be  observed,  how  far 
language  is  from  being  identical  with  thought.  It  is 
so  just  as  much  as  the  mathematician's  figures  and 
symbols  are  identical  with  his  conceptions  of  mathe- 
matical quantities  and  relations;  and  not  one  whit 
more.  It  is,  as  we  noticed  at  the  outset,  the  means 
of  expression  of  thought,  an  instrumentality  auxil- 
iary to  the  processes  of  thought.  An  acquired  lan- 
guage is  something  imposed  from  without  upon  the 
methods  and  results  of  mental  action.  It  does,  indeed, 
as  a  frame-work  imposed  upon  a  growing  and  develop- 
ing body,  give  shape  to  that  which  underlies  it,  deter: 
mining  the  "  inner  form ; "  and  yet  it  is  everywhere 
loose  and  adjustable.  While  working  by  it,  the  mind 
also  works  under  it,  shifting  and  adapting,  changing 
and  improving  its  classifications,  working  in  new  knowl- 
edge and  better  insight.  Thus  far  we  have  emphasized 
the  passive  receptive  work  of  the  mind  in  dealing  with 
language,  because  that  is,  especially  at  the  ouset,  the 
bulk  of  its  work;  in  the  following  chapters  we  have 
to  take  account  of  its  more  independent  and  creative 
activity. 

But  nothing  that  has  been  said  is  to  be  misconstrued 
into  meaning  that  the  mind  is  not,  in  all  its  work,  es- 
sentially an  active  and  creative  force,  or  that  it  gets  by 
instruction  a  faculty  which  it  did  not  before  possess. 
All  that  is  implied  in  the  power  to  speak  belongs  inde- 
feasibly  to  man,  as  a  part  of  his  natural  endowment; 
but  this  power  is  guided  in  its  development,  and  deter- 
mined in  the  result  it  attains,  by  the  example  and  in- 


LANGUAGE-LEARNING  A  PART  OF  EDUCATION.     31 

struction  of  other  minds,  already  developed.  It  does 
nothing  which  it  might  not  have  done  alone,  under 
favoring  circumstances,  and  with  sufficient  time — the 
life-time,  namely,  of  a  few  score  or  hundred  genera- 
tions; but  for  what  it  actually  does,  both  as  regards 
the  how  much  and  the  how,  it  has  to  thank  those  about 
it.  Its  acquisition  of  language  is  a  part  of  its  educa- 
tion, in  just  the  same  manner  and  degree  as  the  other 
parts  of  education. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    CONSERVATIVE    AND    ALTERATIVE    FORCES    IN    LAN- 
GUAGE. 

Other  side  of  life  of  language ;  growth  and  change ;  question  of 
its  mode  and  cause.  Illustrative  passage  from  oldest  Eng- 
lish, or  Anglo-Saxon  ;  exposition  of  its  differences  from  mod- 
ern English  :  differences  of  pronunciation ;  abbreviations  and 
extensions  ;  changes  of  meaning ;  of  phraseology  and  construc- 
tion.    Classification  of  linguistic  changes.   .  . 

We  have  seen  in  the  foregoing  chapter  that  the  in- 
dividual learns  his  language,  obtaining  the  spoken  signs 
of  which  it  is  made  up  by  imitation  from  the  lips  of 
others,  and  shaping  his  conceptions  in  accordance  with 
them.  It  is  thus  that  every  existing  language  is  main- 
tained in  life;  if  this  process  of  tradition,  by  teaching 
and  learning,  were  to  cease  in  any  tongue  upon  earth, 
that  tongue  would  at  once  become  extinct. 

But  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  life  of  language.  If 
it  were  all,  then  each  spoken  dialect  would  remain  the 
same  from  age  to  age.  In  virtue  of  it,  each  does,  in 
fact,  remain  nearly  the  same;  this  is  what  maintains 
the  prevailing  identity  of  speech  so  long  as  the  iden- 
tity of  the  speaking  community  is  maintained — aside 
from  those  great  revolutions  in  their  circumstances 
which  now  and  then  lead  whole  communities  to  adopt 
the  speech  of  another  people.  This,  then,  is  the  grand 
32 


LANGUAGE  CONSTANTLY  CHANGING.  33 

conservative  force  in  the  history  of  language;  if  there 
were  no  disturbing  and  counteracting  forces  to  interfere 
with  its  workings,  every  generation  to  the  end  of  time 
would  speak  as  its  predecessors  had  done. 

Such,  however,  as  every  one  knows,  is  very  far  from 
being  the  case.  All  living  language  is  in  a  condition 
of  constant  growth  and  change.  It  matters  not  to 
what  part  of  the  world  wc  may  go :  if  we  can  find  for 
any  existing  speech  a  record  of  its  predecessor  at  some 
time  distant  from  it  in  the  past,  we  shall  perceive  that 
the  two  are  different — and  more  or  less  different,  main- 
ly in  proportion  to  the  distance  of  time  that  separates 
them.  It  is  so  with  the  Romanic  tongues  of  southern 
Europe,  as  compared  with  their  common  progenitor  the 
Latin;  so  with  the  modern  dialects  of  India,  as  com- 
pared with  the  recorded  forms  of  speech  intermediate 
between  them  and  the  Sanskrit,  or  with  the  Sanskrit 
itself;  and  not  less  with  the  English  of  our  day,  as 
compared  with  that  of  other  days.  An  English  speaker 
even  of  only  a  century  ago  would  find  not  a  little  in 
our  every-day  speech  which  he  would  understand  with 
difficulty,  or  not  at  all;  if  we  were  to  hear  Shakespeare 
read  aloud  a  scene  from  one  of  his  own  works,  it  would 
be  in  no  small  part  unintelligible  (by  reason,  especially, 
of  the  great  difference  between  his  pronunciation  and 
ours)  ;  Chaucer's  English  (500  years  ago)  we  master  by 
dint  of  good  solid  application,  and  with  considerable 
help  from  a  glossary;  and  King  Alfred's  English  (1000 
years  ago),  which  we  call  Anglo-Saxon,  is  not  easier  to 
us  than  German.  All  this,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no 
one  has  gone  about  of  set  purpose  to  alter  English 
speech,  in  any  generation  among  the  thirty  or  forty 
that  have  lived  between  us  and  Alfred,  any  more  than 
in  our  own.     Here,  then,  is  another  side  of  the  life  of 


34     CONSERVATIVE  AND  ALTERATIVE  FORCES. 

language  for  us  to  deal  with,  and  to  explain,  if  we  can. 
Life,  here  as  elsewhere,  appears  to  involve  growth  and 
change  as  an  essential  element ;  and  the  remarkable 
analogies  which  exist  between  the  birth  and  growth 
and  decay  and  extinction  of  a  language  and  those  of  an 
organized  being,  or  of  a  species,  have  been  often  enough 
noticed  and  dwelt  upon :  some  have  even  inferred  from 
them  that  language  is  an  organism,  and  leads  an  or- 
ganic life,  governed  by  laws  with  which  men  cannot 
interfere. 

Plainly,  however,  we  should  be  overhasty  in  resort- 
ing to  such  an  explanation  until  after  mature  inquiry 
and  deliberation.  There  is  no  prima  facie  impossibil- 
ity that  language,  if  an  institution  of  human  device, 
and  propagated  by  tradition,  should  change.  Human 
institutions  in  general  go  down  from  generation  to 
generation  by  a  process  of  transmission  like  that  of 
language,  and  they  are  all  modified  as  they  go.  On 
the  one  hand,  tradition  is  by  its  very  nature  imperfect 
and  inaccurate.  No  one  has  ever  yet  been  able  to  pre- 
vent what  passes  from  mouth  to  ear  from  getting  al- 
tered on  the  way.  The  child  always  commits  blunders, 
of  every  kind,  in  his  earlier  attempts  at  speaking:  if 
careful  and  well  trained,  he  learns  later  to  correct 
them ;  but  he  is  often  careless  and  untrained.  And 
all  through  the  life-long  process  of  learning  one's 
"  mother-tongue,"  one  is  liable  to  apprehend  wrongly 
and  to  reproduce  inexactly.  On  the  other  hand,  al- 
though the  child  in  his  first  stage  of  learning  is  more 
than  satisfied  to  take  what  is  set  before  him  and  use  it 
as  he  best  can,  because  his  mental  development  is  far 
short  of  that  which  it  represents,  and  its  acquisition  is 
urging  him  on  at  his  best  rate  of  progress,  the  case 
does  not  always  continue  thus  with  him:  by  and  by 


INDIVIDUAL  CHANGES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

his  mind  has  grown  up,  perhaps,  to  the  full  measure 
of  that  which  his  speech  represents,  and  begins  to  ex- 
hibit its  native  and  surplus  force;  it  chafes  against  the  » 
imposed  framework  of  current  expression;  it  modifies 
a  little  its  inherited  instrument,  in  order  to  adapt  this 
better  to  its  own  purposes.  So,  to  have  recourse  to  an 
obvious  analogy,  one  ma}r,  by  diligent  study  under  in- 
structors, have  reached  in  some  single  department — as 
of  natural  science,  mathematics,  philosophy — the  fur- 
thest limits  of  his  predecessors'  knowledge,  and  found 
them  too  strait  for  him;  he  adds  new  facts,  draws  new 
distinctions,  establishes  new  relations,  which  the  sub- 
sisting technical  language  of  the  department  is  incom- 
petent to  express^  and  there  arises  thus  an  absolute 
need  of  new  expression,  which  must  in  some  way  or 
other  be  met;  and  it  is  met.  Every  language  must 
prove  itself  able  to  signify  what  is  in  the  minds  of  its 
speakers  to  express;  if  unequal  to  that,  it  would  have 
to  abdicate  its  office;  it  would  no  longer  answer  the 
purposes  of  a  language.  The  sum  of  what  all  the  in- 
dividual speakers  contribute  to  the  common  store  of 
thought  and  knowledge  by  original  work  has  to  be 
worked  into  the  "inner  form"  of  their  language  alon  ; 
with  and  by  means  of  some  alteration  in  its  outer  form. 

Here,  then,  at  any  rate,  are  two  obvious  forces,  hav- 
ing their  roots  in  human  action,  and  constantly  operat- 
ing toward  the  change  of  language;  and  it  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  there  are  any  others,  of  a  different 
character.  Let  us,  then,  proceed  to  examine  the  changes 
which  actually  go  on  in  language,  and  which  by  their 
sum  and  combined  effect  constitute  its  growth,  and  see 
what  they  will  say  as  to  the  force  that  brings  them 
abouL>4 

And  it  will  be  well  to  begin  with  a  concrete  exam- 


36     CONSERVATIVE  AND  ALTERATIVE  FORCES. 

pie,  a  specimen  of  altered  speech,  which  shall  serve  as 
a  source  of  illustration,  and  as  groundwork  for  a  clas- 
sification of  the  kinds  of  linguistic  change.  The  French- 
man would  find  his  best  example  in  a  parallel  between 
a  phrase  of  ancient  Latin  and  its  correspondent  in  mod- 
ern French,  with  intermediate  forms  from  the  older 
French;  the  German  could  trace  a  passage  backward 
through  the  Middle  to  the  Old  High-German,  with 
hints  of  a  yet  remoter  antiquity  derived  from  the 
Gothic;  to  the  English  speaker,  nothing  else  is  so  avail- 
able as  a  specimen  of  the  oldest  English,  or  Anglo- 
Saxon,  of  a  thousand  years  ago.  Let  us  look,  then,  at 
a  verse  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  gospels,  and  compare  it 
with  its  modern  counterpart : — 

Se  Hcelcnd  for  on  reste-doeg  ofer  ceceras;  sothlice  his 
leoming-cnihtas  hyngrede,  and  hi  ongunnon  pluccian 
thd  ear  and  etan. 

No  ordinary  English  reader,  certainly,  would  un- 
derstand this,  or  discover  that  it  is  the  equivalent  of 
the  following  sentence  of  our  modern  version : — 

"  Jesus  went  on  the  sabbath  day  through  the  corn ; 
and  his  disciples  were  a  hungered,  and  began  to  pluck 
the  ears  of  corn  and  to  eat."     (Matthew  xii.  1.) 

And  yet,  by  translating  it  as  literally  as  we  can,  we 
shall  find  that  almost  every  element  in  it  is  still  good 
English,  only  disguised  by  changes  of  form  and  of 
meaning.    Thus : — 

'  The  Healing  [one]  fared  on  rest-day  over  [the] 
acres;  soothly,  his  learning-knights  [it]  hungered,  and 
they  began  [to]  pluck  the  ears  and  eat.' 

Thus  although,  from  one  point  of  view,  and  and 
his  are  the  only  words  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  passage 
which  are  the  same  also  in  the  English — and  not  even 
those  really,  since  their  former  pronunciation  was  some- 


CHANGES  OF   PRONUNCIATION.  37 

what  different  from  their  present — from  another  point 
of  view  everything  is  English  excepting  se,  '  the/  and 
hi,  '  they  ' — and  even  those,  virtually ;  since  they  are 
cases  of  inflection  of  the  definite  article  and  third  per- 
sonal pronoun,  of  which  other  cases  (as  the,  that,  they, 
and  he,  his,  him)  are  still  in  good  use  with  us.  Both 
the  discordance  and  the  accordance  are  complete,  ac- 
cording to  the  way  in  which  we  look  at  them.  We 
will  proceed  to  examine  the  passage  a  little  in  detail, 
in  order  to  understand  better  the  relations  between  the 
older  and  the  newer  form. 

In  the  first  place,  their  pronunciation  is  even  more 
different  than  is  indicated  by  the  written  text.  There 
are  at  least  two  sounds  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  which  are 
unknown  in  our  present  speech :  namely,  the  h  of 
cnihtas,  which  was  nearly  or  quite  the  same  with  the 
ch  of  the  corresponding  German  word  Jcnecht,  and  the  y 
of  hyngrede,  which  was  the  German  u  and  French  u,  an 
u ( oo ) -sound  with  an  i(ee) -sound  intimately  combined 
with  it.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  sounds  in  the 
English  which  were  unknown  to  the  Anglo-Saxon. 
Our  so-called  "  short  o,"  of  on,  was  no  ancien^  sound ; 
nor  was  the  "  short  u "  of  begun,  pluck,  which  had 
then  the  vowel-sound  of  book  and  full;  nor  was  the 
"  short  i "  of  his,  which  was  more  like  the  French 
and  German  short  i,  not  markedly  different  in  quality 
from  the  true  long  i,  our  so-called  "  long  e,"  or  ee-sound. 
All  these  are  examples  of  the  manifold  changes  of  Eng- 
lish pronunciation  during  the  thousand  years  since  Al- 
fred— changes  which  have  altered  the  whole  aspect  of 
our  orthoepy  and  orthography.  And  others  of  them 
are  illustrated  in  the  passage:  for  instance,  our  knight 
and  eat  show  protractions  of  the  short  vowels  of  cniht 
and  etan,  each  typical  of  a  whole  class  of  cases;  and 


38     CONSERVATIVE  AND  ALTERATIVE  FORCES. 

the  lengthened  i  has  been  changed  into  a  diphthong, 
which  we  call  "  long  i  "  simply  because  it  has  taken  the 
place  of  our  former  long  i  (ee)  ;  while  we  call  the  real 
long  i  of  eat  by  the  false  name  of  "  long  e  "  for  the 
same  reason. 

Again,  we  may  observe  in  the  forms  of  many  words 
the  effects  of  a  tendency  toward  abbreviation.  Reste 
and  hyngrede  have  lost  with  us  their  final  e,  which  in 
Anglo-Saxon,  as  now  in  German  and  Italian,  made  an 
additional  syllable.  Ongunnon,  pluccian,  and  etan 
have  lost  both  vowel  and  consonant  of  a  final  syllable; 
and  these  syllables  were  the  distinctive  endings,  in  the 
first  word  of  the  plural  verbal  inflection  (ongan,  'I  or 
he  began/  but  ongunnon,  'we  or  they  began'),  in  the 
other  two  of  the  infinitive.  In  ceceras,  '  acres,'  and 
cnihtas,  '  knights,'  though  we  have  saved  the  final  s  of 
the  plural  ending,  it  no  longer  makes  an  additional 
syllable.  And  in  sothlice,  '  soothly '  (i.e.  'truly,  ver- 
ily '),  there  is  a  yet  more  marked  abbreviation,  to  which 
we  shall  presently  return. 

On  the  other  hand,  ear,  '  ears,'  and  for,  '  fared,' 
have  been  extended  in  modern  time  by  the  addition  of 
other  pronounced  elements.  It  was  the  rule  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  that  a  neuter  noun  of  one  syllable,  if  of  long 
quantity,  had  no  (nom.  or  accus.)  plural  ending.  With 
us,  every  noun,  of  whatever  gender  or  quantity  (save 
a  few  exceptions,  of  which  we  need  take  no  account 
here),  takes  s  as  its  plural  sign.  As  for  for,  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  conjugated  faran,  '  fare,'  as  they  did  dragan, 
'draw,'  and  said  for,  'fared,'  like  droit,  'drew'  (com- 
pare the  corresponding  German  faliren  fuhr  and  tra- 
gen  trug) — that  is  to  say,  faran  was  to  them  a  verb  of 
the  "  irregular,"  or  "  old,"  or  "  strong  "  conjugation. 
But  for  a  long  time  there  has  existed  in  English  speech 


CHANGES  OF  MEANING.  39 

a  tendency  to  work  over  such  verbs,  abandoning  their 
irregularly  varying  inflection,  and  reducing  them  to 
accordance  with  the  more  numerous  class  of  the  "  regu- 
larly "  inflected,  like  love,  loved;  and  fare  is  one  of  the 
many  that  have  undergone  this  change.  The  process 
is  quite  analogous  with  that  which  has  .turned  ear  into 
cars:  that  is  to  say,  a  prevailing  analogy  has  been 
extended  to  include  cases  formerly  treated  as  excep- 
tional. 

In  connection  with  ear  comes  to  light  another  very 
striking  difference  between  the  ancient  and  modern 
English:  The  Anglo-Saxon  had  grammatical  gender, 
like  the  Greek  and  Latin  and  German;  it  regarded  ear 
as  neuter,  but  cecer  and  dmg  as  masculine,  and,  for  in- 
stance, tunge,  '  tongue,'  and  deed,  'deed,'  as  feminine; 
to  us,  who  have  abolished  grammatical  gender  in  favor 
of  natural  sex,  all  are  alike  neuter. 

We  turn  now  to  consider  a  few  points  relative  to 
the  meaning  of  the  words  used.  In  for  we  find  a 
marked  difference  of  sense  as  well  as  of  form.  It  is 
part  of  an  old  Germanic  verb  meaning  ( go,'  and  is 
traceable  even  back  into  the  earliest  Indo-European,  as 
the  root  par,  '  pass  '  (Skt.  paraydmi,  Gr.  7repa<o,  Lat. 
ex-per-ior)  ;  now  it  is  quite  obsolete  in  any  such  sense 
as  this,  and  rather  unusual  even  in  that  of  '  getting  on,' 
'  making  progress : '  "it  fared  ill  with  him."  Again, 
ozcer  meant  in  Anglo-Saxon  a  '  cultivated  field,'  as  does 
the  German  acker  to  the  present  day;  and  here,  again, 
we  have  its  very  ancient  correlatives  in  Sanskrit  ajra, 
Greek  dypos,  Latin  ager;  the  restriction  of  the  word 
to  signify  a  field  of  certain  fixed  dimensions,  taken  as 
a  unit  of  measure  for  fields  in  general,  is  something 
quite  peculiar  and  recent.  It  is  analogous  with  the  like 
treatment  of  rod  and  foot  and  grain,  and  so  on,  except 


40     CONSERVATIVE  AND  ALTERATIVE   FORCES. 

that  in  these  cases  we  have  saved  the  old  meaning  while 
adding  the  new. 

Among  the  striking  peculiarities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
passage  is  its  use  of  the  words  Hadend,  '  healing  one,' 
reste-dceg,  'rest-day,'  and  leorning-cnihtas,  'learning- 
knights  '  (i.  e.  'youths  under  instruction  '),  in  the  sense 
respectively  of  'Savior/  'sabbath,'  and  ' disciples.' 
Though  all  composed  of  genuine  old  Germanic  mate- 
rials, they  were  nevertheless  recent  additions  to  the 
language.  The  introduction  of  Christianity  had  cre- 
ated a  necessity  for  them.  For  the  new  idea  of  the 
Christian  Creator  and  Father,  the  old  word  god,  en- 
nobled and  inspired  with  a  new  meaning,  answered 
English  purposes  well  enough.  But  there  was  no  cur- 
rent name  applicable  to  the  conception  of  one  who 
saved  men  from  their  sins,  making  them  whole  or  hale; 
and  so  the  present  participle  of  the  verb  ha'lan,  '  make 
hale,  heal,'  was  chosen  to  represent  o-uirijp,  and  special- 
ized into  a  proper  name,  a  title  for  the  one  Savior.  It 
is  the  same  word  which,  in  German,  is  still  current  as 
Heiland.  Reste-dceg,  as  name  for  the  sabbath,  needs 
no  word  of  explanation  or  comment.  As  for  leorning- 
cnihtas,  rendering  discipuli  and  fjuaOrp-at,  its  most 
striking  characteristic,  apart  from  its  rather  lumbering 
awkwardness,  is  the  peculiar  meaning  which  it  implies 
in  cniht,  'knight.'  Between  our  knight,  a  word  of 
high  chivalric  significance,  and  the  German  hnecht, 
1  servant,  menial,'  is  a  long  distance :  both  show  a  de- 
viation, the  one  in  an  upward  and  the  other  in  a  down- 
ward direction,  from  the  indifferent  '  youth,  fellow,' 
which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  use  of  the  word  in  our 
Anglo-Saxon  compound. 

But  a  not  less  noteworthy  point  in  the  history  of 
these  words  is  that  in  our  later  usage  they  have  all  be- 


MAKING  OF  FORMS.  41 

come  superseded  by  other  terms,  of  foreign  origin. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  did  not,  like  our  English,  resort  free- 
ly to  foreign  stores  of  expression  for  the  supply  of  new 
needs.  It  was  easier  then  to  accept  the  new  institu- 
tions of  Christianity  than  new  names  for  them.  We 
have  wonderfully  changed  all  that,  under  the  operation 
of  causes  which  will  come  up  for  notice  hereafter 
(chapter  vii.) ;  and  in  place  of  the  three  new  Saxon 
names  we  have  put  other  yet  newer  ones :  two  Latin- 
French,  disciple  and  savior,  and  one  Hebrew,  sabbath. 
The  substitution  exemplifies  a  capital  trait  in  English 
language-history. 

Our  attention  being  thus  directed  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  new  elements  into  Anglo-Saxon,  we  will  note 
another  case  or  two  of  the  same  kind  of  linguistic 
change  in  another  department.  Sothlice  is  an  adverb, 
answering  to  our  '  truly.'  We  recognize  in  the  first 
part  of  it  our  sooth,  a  word  now  almost  obsolete — quite 
so,  as  far  as  ordinary  use  is  concerned.  Its  second  part, 
lice,  is  our  ly.  But  it  is  also  a  case-form  (instrumental) 
of  an  adjective  lie,  our  like,  which  was  appended  to  the 
noun  soth,  '  truth,'  forming  a  compound  adjective  (or 
adjectival  derivative)  equivalent  to  truth-like,  and  com- 
pletely analogous  to  truthful,  from  truth  and  full. 
Our  adverbial  ending  ly,  then,  by  which  most  of  our 
adverbs  are  made,  and  which  to  us  is  only  a  suffix,  is 
really  the  product  of  alteration  of  a  case-form  of  a 
compounded  adjective,  a  word  originally  independent. 
Instead  of  using,  like  the  modern  German,  the  base  or 
crude-form  of  an  adjective  as  adverb — that  is  to  say,  in 
the  formal  grammatical  character  of  adaptedness  to 
qualify  a  verb  or  adjective  rather  than  a  substantive 
— we  have  wrought  out  for  that  purpose  a  special  form, 
of  which  the  history  of  development  may  be  followed 


42     CONSERVATIVE  AND  ALTERATIVE  FORCES. 

step  by  step  to  its  origin,  and  which  is  exclusively  the 
property  of  our  language  among  its  kindred  Germanic 
dialects. 

A  second  case  is  brought  before  us  in  hyngrede. 
Its  preterit  ending  cle  is  not,  like  the  adverbial  ly,  ex- 
clusively English ;  it  is  rather,  like  the  adjective  lie,  a 
common  Germanic  possession.  Without  dwelling  here 
at  length  upon  its  history,  we  will  only  observe  that  it 
is,  like  lice,  traced  back  to  an  independent  word,  the 
preterit  did,  which  was  in  remote  Germanic  time  added 
to  some  verbal  derivative,  or  other  part  of  speech,  to 
form  a  new  style  of  past  tense,  when  the  yet  older  pro- 
cesses of  preterit  formation  had  become  no  longer  man- 
ageable. 

There  are  also  changes  of  construction  in  our  pas- 
sage which  ought  not  to  pass  without  a  moment's  no- 
tice. The  word  leorning-cnihtas  is  object,  not  subject, 
of  hyngrede;  and  the  construction  is  that  peculiar  one 
in  which  the  impersonal  verb,  without  expressed  sub- 
ject, takes  before  it  as  object  the  person  affected  by  the 
action  or  feeling  it  signifies.  This  is  still  a  familiar 
mode  of  expression  in  German,  where  one  freely  says 
mich  hungerte,  '  me  hungered,'  for  '  I  hungered ; '  and 
even  we  have  a  trace  of  it,  in  the  obsolescent  methinks, 
German  mich  diinkt — that  is,  'it  seems  to  me.'  Again, 
the  infinitives  pluccian  and  etan,  being  by  origin  ver- 
bal nouns  and  having  properly  the  construction  of 
nouns,  are  directly  dependent,  as  objects,  on  the  tran- 
sitive verb  ongunnon.  We  make  the  same  construc- 
tion with  some  verbs:  so,  he  will  pluck,  he  must  eat, 
see  him  pluck,  lei  him  eat;  and  even  after  began  short- 
ened to  'gan  it  is  allowed  ;  *  but  in  the  vast  majority  of 
cases  we  require  the  preposition  to  as  "  infinitive  sign," 

*  "  Around  'gan  Marmion  wildly  stare." — W.  Scott. 


CHANGES  OF  CONSTRUCTION.  43 

saying  "  began  to  pluck  and  to  eat."  This  preposition 
was  not  unknown  in  Anglo-Saxon;  but  it  was  used 
only  where  the  connection  pretty  manifestly  favored 
the  insertion  of  such  a  connective;  and  the  infinitive 
after  it  had  a  peculiar  form :  thus,  god  to  etanne,  '  good 
unto  eating,'  and  so  '  good  to  eat.'  The  to  which  at 
the  period  of  our  specimen-passage  was  a  real  word  of 
relation  has  now  become  the  stereotyped  sign  of  a  cer- 
tain verbal  form;  it  has  no  more  independent  value 
than  the  ending  an  of  pluccian  and  etan — which,  in- 
deed, it  in  a  manner  replaces;  though  not,  like  -ly  and 
-d,  combined  with  the  word  to  which  it  belongs,  its  of- 
fice is  analogous  with  theirs. 

We  will  notice  but  one  thing  more  in  the  passage: 
the  almost  oblivion  into  which  soth,  our  sooth,  has  fall- 
en. Only  a  small  part  of  the  great  body  of  English - 
speakers  know  that  there  is  such  a  word;  and  no  one 
but  a  poet,  or  an  imitator  of  archaic  style,  ever  uses  it. 
We  have  put  in  place  of  it  true  and  truth,  which  of  old 
were  more  restricted  to  the  expression  of  faithfulness, 
trustworthiness. 

The  brief  sentence  selected,  we  see,  illustrates  a 
very  considerable  variety  of  linguistic  changes;  in  fact, 
there  is  hardly  a  possible  mode  of  change  which  is  not 
more  or  less  distinctly  brought  to  light  by  it.  Such 
are,  in  general,  the  ways  in  which  a  language  comes  to 
be  at  a  later  period  different  from  what  it  has  been  at 
an  earlier.  They  are  matters  of  individual  detail ;  each 
item,  or  each  class  of  accordant  items,  has  its  own  time 
and  occasion,  and  analogies,  and  secondary  causes,  and 
consequences ;  it  is  their  sum  and  collective  effect  which 
make  up  the  growth  of  language.  If  we  are  to  under- 
stand how  language  grows,  we  must  take  them  up  and 
examine  them  in  their  individuality.    This,  then,  is  the 


44     CONSERVATIVE  AND  ALTERATIVE  FORCES. 

subject  which  is  now  for  some  time  to  occupy  us :  an 
inquiry  into  the  modes  of  linguistic  change,  and  their 
causes,  nearer  and  remoter. 

We  have  already  rudely  made  one  classification  of 
these  linguistic  changes,  founded  on  the  various  pur- 
pose which  they  subserve:  namely,  into  such  as  make 
new  expressions,  being  produced  for  the  designation  of 
conceptions  before  undesignated;  and  such  as  merely 
alter  the  form  of  old  expression ;  or,  into  additions  and 
alterations.  It  will,  however,  suit  our  purpose  better 
to  make  a  more  external  division,  one  depending  upon 
the  kind  of  change  rather  than  upon  its  object.  In 
carrying  this  out,  it  will  be  practicable  to  take  every- 
where sufficient  notice  of  the  object  also. 

We  may  distinguish,  then : — 

I.  Alterations  of  the  old  material  of  language; 
change  of  the  words  which  are  still  retained  as  the  sub- 
stance of  expression;  and  this  of  two  kinds  or  sub- 
classes: 1.  change  in  uttered  form;  2.  change  in  con- 
tent or  signification;  the  two,  as  we  shall  see,  occurring 
either  independently  or  in  conjunction. 

II.  Losses  of  the  old  material  of  language,  disap- 
pearance of  what  has  been  in  use;  and  this  also  of  two 
kinds:  1.  loss  of  complete  words;  2.  loss  of  gram- 
matical forms  and  distinctions. 

III.  Production  of  new  material ;  additions  to  the 
old  stock  of  a  language,  in  the  way  of  new  words  or 
new  forms;  external  expansion  of  the  resources  of  ex- 
pression. 

This  classification  is  obviously  exhaustive;  there 
can  be  no  change  in  any  language  which  will  not  fall 
under  one  or  other  of  the  three  classes  here  laid  down. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

0 

GROWTH  OF  LANGUAGE  :  CHANGE  IN  THE  OUTER  FORM  OF 
WORDS. 

Relation  of  the  word  to  the  conception  it  designates,  as  condi- 
tioning the  possibility,  and  the  mutual  independence,  of  its 
changes  of  form  and  meaning.  Tendency  to  ease  or  economy 
in  changes  of  form.  Abbreviation  of  words ;  examples ;  its 
agency  in  form-making ;  loss  of  endings.  Substitution  of 
one  sound  for  another;  examples  of  vowel  and  consonant 
change  ;  Grimm's  law  ;  underlying  causes  of  phonetic  change  ; 
processes  of  utterance ;  physical  or  natural  scheme  of  spoken 
alphabet;  its  series  and  classes ;  distinction  of  vowel  and  conso- 
nant ;  syllabic  or  articulate  character  of  human  speech.  Gen- 
eral tendencies  in  phonetic  change.  Limits  to  phonetic  expla- 
nation.    Change  of  form  by  extension  of  a  prevailing  analogy. 

In  this  chapter  we  have  to  take  up  and  illustrate 
the  first  division  of  the  first  class  of  linguistic  changes, 
that  which  includes  alterations  of  the  uttered  and  au- 
dible forms  of  words.  But  first  it  will  be  well  to  call 
attention  anew  to  certain  general  principles  (already 
hinted  at  in  the  second  chapter),  which  are  of  funda- 
mental importance  as  underlying  the  whole  subject  of 
verbal  alteration,  whether  in  respect  to  shape  or  sense. 
And  we  shall  best  attain  our  object  by  discussing  a 
selected  example. 

Let  us  take  a  familiar  word,  found  in  most  of  the 
languages  of  modern  Europe,  and  having  a  well-known 
history — the  word  bishop.     It  comes,  as  almost  every 

45 


46    CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

one  is  aware,  from  the  Greek  c7rto-/<o7ros  (episfcopos). 
This,  again,  is  a  derivative  from  the  root  skep,  '  see, 
look,'  with  the  prefix  epi,  c at;'  and  so  it  means  by  ori- 
gin simply  '  inspector,  overseer ; '  in  the  early  formative 
period  of  the  Christian  church,  it  was  selected  as  offi- 
cial designation  of  the  person  to  whom  was  committed 
the  oversight  of  the  affairs  of  a  little  Christian  com- 
munity: and  both  word  and  office  are  still  readily  rec- 
ognizable in  our  bishop  and  its  use.  But  we  have  cut 
down  the  long  title  into  a  briefer  one,  by  dropping  its 
first  and  last  syllables:  and  we  have  worked  over  into 
new  shape  most  of  its  constituent  sounds :  we  have 
changed  the  first  p  into  a  different  but  closely  kindred 
sound,  its  corresponding  sonant,  b;  the  sk,  a  sibilant 
with  following  palatal  mute,  has  been  as  it  were  fused 
together  into  the  more  palatal  sibilant,  sh,  a  simple 
sound,  though  it  is  written  with  two  letters,  just  be- 
cause of  its  usual  derivation  by  fusion  of  two  simple 
sounds  into  one;  and  the  o-sound  of  the  second  sylla- 
ble has  been  neutralized  into  what  we  usually  call  the 
"  short  u  "  sound — and  the  result  is  our  word,  with  two 
syllables  instead  of  four,  and  with  five  sounds  instead 
of  nine,  and  among  those  five  only  two,  the  consonant 
p  and  the  vowel  i,  which  were  of  the  nine.  The  Ger- 
man, in  its  bischof,  has  altered  even  the  final  p.  The 
French,  again,  has  made  out  of  the  same  original  a 
very  different ' looking  product,  eveque,  which  does  not 
contain  a  single  sound  that  is  found  either  in  the  Eng- 
lish word  or  in  the  German;  it  comes,  by  another  set 
of  changes,  from  evesc,  for  epislc.  In  Spanish,  the  word 
is  made  into  obispo,  by  yet  another  process,  and  this  is 
further  shortened  in  the  Portuguese  bispo.  The  Dan- 
ish, finally,  shows  the  extreme  of  abbreviation,  in  the 
monosyllable    bisp.      While    these    changes    have    been 


THE  WORD  BISHOP.  47 

going  on,  the  meaning  of  the  word  has  been  not  less 
altered.  The  official  who  was,  when  first  named,  mere- 
ly overseer  of  the  interests  of  a  little  band  of  timid 
proselytes  to  a  new  and  proscribed  faith,  half-expectant 
martyrs,  has  risen  immensely  in  dignity  and  power, 
along  with  the  rise  of  the  religion  to  importance,  and 
to  preeminence  in  the  state;  he  has  become  a  conse- 
crated prelate,  charged  with  spiritual  and  temporal 
authority  through  an  entire  province — a  kind  of  eccle- 
siastical prince,  yet  still  wearing  his  old  simple  title. 

From  this  word,  taken  as  a  type,  we  may  learn 
many  things,  which  a  wider  induction,  from  innumer- 
able examples,  would  only  confirm. 

First,  the  name  had  its  origin  in  a  need  which  arose 
at  a  particular  time  and  place  in  the  progress  of  human 
history.  A  new  religion  came  into  being,  and  required 
organization  of  its  votaries;  and  this  made  a  call  for 
technical  designations  of  its  officials — which,  as  in  all 
similar  cases,  were  then  without  difficulty  found :  not 
bishop  only,  but  priest  and  deacon,  and  so  on.  The 
words  were,  in  fact,  already  in  existence,  as  general 
terms,  ready,  like  the  people  who  should  wear  them,  to 
be  selected  and  set  apart  to  this  specific  office.  What 
should  come  of  it  further,  whether  the  new  titles  should 
rise  to  importance  and  attain  wide  currency,  depended 
on  the  after-fate  of  the  system  to  which  they  be- 
longed. 

Again,  the  word  bishop  did  not  describe,  either  fully 
or  accurately,  the  office  which  it  was  used  to  designate. 
Mere  '  looking  on '  or  '  looking  over '  was  not  what 
men  expected  of  the  person  elected;  the  barest  hint  of 
his  official  duty  is  contained  in  the  term.  But,  imper- 
fect as  it  may  have  been  as  a  description,  it  was  suffi- 
cient as  a  designation.     The  description  would  have 


48    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OP  WORDS. 

needed  to  be  a  long  one,  and  varied  to  suit  the  cir- 
cumstances of  each  new  place  and  time;  the  title 
answered  its  desired  purpose  equally  well  in  all  cir- 
cumstances. 

Hence  also,  as  little  did  the  retention  of  the  title 
depend  upon  the  maintenance  of  just  that  kind  and  de- 
gree of  relation  between  its  etymological  meaning  and 
the  office  it  denominated  which  had  existed  at  the  out- 
set. Even  what  etymological  appropriateness  it  once 
possessed  was  no  longer  of  any  account,  when  once  it 
had  become  established  in  use  as  name  of  the  office. 
It  passed,  with  the  institution  to  which  it  belonged, 
into  the  keeping  and  use  of  great  communities  which 
did  not  speak  Greek  and  had  no  knowledge  of  what  it 
originally  signified,  and  it  served  its  purpose  with  them 
just  as  well  as  if  they  had  understood  its  whole  history. 
From  the  moment  when  it  became  an  accepted  sign  for 
a  certain  thing,  its  whole  career  was  cut  loose  from  its 
primitive  root;  it  became,  what  it  has  ever  since  con- 
tinued to  be,  a  conventional  sign,  and  hence  an  alter- 
able sign,  for  a  certain  conception,  but  a  variable  and 
developing  conception. 

In  this  fundamental  fact,  that  the  uttered  sign  was 
a  conventional  one,  bound  to  the  conception  signified 
by  it  only  by  a  tie  of  mental  association,  lay  the  possi- 
bility both  of  its  change  of  meaning  and  of  its  change 
of  form.  If  the  tie  were  a  natural,  an  internal  and 
necessary  one,  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  any  change 
in  either  would  have  to  be  accompanied  by  a  change  in 
the  other.  But  in  the  case  taken,  while  the  idea  has 
expanded  into  greatness,  the  word  has  been  shrinking 
in  its  proportions,  and  is  nowhere  more  than  a  frag- 
ment of  its  former  self.  The  only  tendency  which  we 
can  discover  in  its  treatment  is   a   tendency   toward 


CHANGE  OP  FORM  AND  MEANING.     40 

economy  of  effort  in  its  utterance;  it  has  been  reshaped 
to  suit  better  the  convenience  of  those  who  used  it. 
In  the  forms  which  it  has  assumed,  we  can  plainly  trace 
the  influence  of  national  habits.  The  Germanic  races 
accent  prevailingly  the  first  syllable  of  their  words; 
they  have,  then,  while  retaining  the  old  accented  syl- 
lable with  its  accent,  cast  off  the  one  that  preceded  it. 
The  French,  on  the  other  hand,  accents  its  final  sylla- 
ble (which  is  regularly  the  Latin  accented  syllable)  ;  it, 
accordingly,  drops  all  that  followed  the  accented  -pisk-, 
but  retains  the  initial  syllable  which  the  others  re- 
jected. And  the  other  various  alterations  of  form 
which  the  word  has  undergone  may  be  paralleled  with 
classes  of  similar  alterations  in  other  words  of  the  same 
language;  all  apparently  made  to  humor  the  ease  of 
the  speakers. 

In  treating  separately,  therefore,  the  subjects  of 
change  of  form  and  change  of  meaning  in  words,  we 
are  not  parting  two  necessarily  connected  and  mutually 
dependent  processes,  but  only  recognizing  a  natural 
independence.  A  word  may  change  its  form,  to  any 
extent,  without  change  of  meaning;  it  may  take  on  an 
entirely  new  meaning  without  change  of  form.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  words  are  few  or  none  which  have 
not  done  both;  and,  in  taking  up  either,  we  shall  have 
to  use  examples  which  illustrate  the  other  as  well.  All 
the  material  of  language  exhibits  more  or  less  the 
working  of  all  the  processes  of  growth;  but  it  will  not 
be  hard  to  direct  our  attention,  exclusively  or  espe- 
cially, now  to  the  one  and  now  to  the  other  of  them. 

And,  as  regards  change  of  form,  we  have  to  recog- 
nize, as  the  grand  tendency  underlying  all  the  innu- 
merable and  apparently  heterogeneous  facts  which  it 
embraces,  the  disposition,  or  at  least  the  readiness,  to 


50    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

give  up  such  parts  of  words  as  can  be  spared  without 
detriment  to  the  sense,  and  so  to  work  over  what  is 
left  that  it  shall  be  more  manageable  by  its  users,  more 
agreeable  to  their  habits  and  preferences.  The  science 
of  language  has  not  succeeded  in  bringing  to  light  any 
more  fundamental  law  than  this,  even  any  other  to  put 
alongside  of  it;  it  is  the  grand  current  setting  through 
universal  language,  and  moving  all  its  materials  in  a 
given  direction — although,  like  other  such  currents,  it 
has  its  eddies,  where  a  counter-movement  on  a  small 
scale  may  seem  to  prevail.  It  is  another  manifestation 
of  the  same  tendency  which  leads  men  to  use  abbre- 
viations in  writing,  to  take  a  short  cut  instead  of  going 
around  by  the  usual  road,  and  other  like  things — in 
which  there  is  no  harm,  unless  more  is  lost  than  gained 
by  the  would-be  economy:  then,  indeed,  it  becomes 
rather  laziness  than  economy.  Its  operation,  as  mani- 
fested in  language,  is  of  both  kinds,  true  economy  and 
lazy  wastefulness;  for  it  works  on  with  blind  absence 
of  forethought,  heedless,  in  part,  of  the  results  to  which 
it  leads. 

The  character  of  the  tendency  is  seen  most  clearly 
in  the  abbreviation  of  words;  obviously,  nothing  else 
is  needed  to  explain  the  gradual  reduction  of  form 
which  has  ever  been  going  on  in  the  constituents  of 
every  language.  We  noticed  above  (p.  38)  sundry  ex- 
amples of  innocent  abbreviation  made  by  us  in  the 
words  of  our  specimen-passage :  the  most  striking  was 
our  knights  (i.  e.  naits)  for  cnihtas,  a  loss  of  two  pro- 
nounced elements  besides  the  shortening  by  a  syllable. 
It  is  easy  to  perceive  in  all  these  cases  the  tendency  to 
ease  at  work;  and  we  appreciate  in  the  last  the  com- 
parative difficulty  of  uttering  a  A--sound  before  an  n: 
the  class  of  words  in  which  we  have  dropped  it  off  is 


WEARING  OUT  OF  ENDINGS.  gl 

not  a  small  one  (e.  g.  knife  and  Tcnit,  gnaw  and  gnarl). 
And  the  German  c/i-sound  (of  ich,  etc.)  belonging  to  the 
h  of  cniht,  itself  coming  by  phonetic  change  from  an 
earlier  h,  is  one  which  English  organs  have  taken  a  dis- 
taste to,  and  have  refused  longer  to  produce.  Some- 
times they  have  left  it  out  altogether  (with  compensa- 
tory prolongation  of  the  preceding  vowel),  as  in  the 
word  before  us;  sometimes  they  have  changed  it  into 
/,  as  in  draught  and  laugh.  In  ongunnon,  'begun,' 
however,  and  in  pluccian  and  etan,  '  pluck '  and  '  eat,' 
we  have  instances  of  that  kind  of  loss  which  is  akin  to 
wastefulness ;  for  the  lost  final  syllables  are  those  which 
showed  the  grammatical  form  of  the  words,  being  plu- 
ral ending  and  infinitive  ending.  Eegrettable  as  they 
may  be,  the  history  of  our  language,  and  of  the  others 
related  with  it,  has  been  from  the  beginning  marked 
with  such  losses,  whereby  grammatical  distinctions  have 
been  let  go,  along  with  the  forms  on  which  the  speak- 
ers' consciousness  of  them  depended.  To.  show  this 
more  fully,  we  will  for  a  moment  follow  the  history  of 
the  on,  the  now  lost  ending  of  ongunnon.  In  the  old- 
est form  to  which  it  can  be  traced,  it  was  anti,  probably 
the  relic  of  an  independent  pronoun  or  pronouns,  dis- 
tinguishing the  third  person  plural  in  all  verbal  inflec- 
tion. In  the  Latin  it  is  shortened  to  writ,  but  still  per- 
fectly distinctive.  In  the  oldest  Germanic  (Mceso- 
Gothic),  it  is  and  in  the  present  tense,  but  in  the  preterit 
already  contracted  to  uu.  The  corresponding  ending 
in  the  first  person  plural  was  niasi,  also  of  pronominal 
derivation;  this,  after  passing  through  such  intermedi- 
ate forms  as  Sanskrit  mas,  (Doric)  Greek  pes,  Latin 
mus,  and  Slavonic  mil,  had  become  in  Gothic  am  in  the 
present,  um  in  the  perfect.  In  German,  we  find  only 
en  in  both  first  and  third  person,  the  slight  difference  of 


52    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

um  and  un  having  been  obliterated;  but  the  second 
person  has  et,  different  from  the  other  two;  in  the  An- 
glo-Saxon, this  distinction  has  gone  the  way  of  the  rest, 
and  we  have  left  only  a  general  ending  on,  separating 
all  the  plural  persons  alike  from  the  singular ;  and  final- 
ly, the  English  has  swept  away  even  this  remnant  of  a 
former  elaborate  system. 

Another  example  of  the  earlier  effects  of  the  same 
tendency  in  our  passage  is  for,  '  fared,'  the  brevity  of 
which,  like  that  of  English  monosyllables  generally,  is 
the  result  of  a  long  succession  of  abbreviating  processes. 
Its  earliest  traceable  form  is  pa  para;  but  even  that 
shows  the  loss  of  a  personal  ending  ti,  which  it  must 
have  had  at  the  outset,  and  which  is  still  represented  to 
us  in  the  present  tense  by  the  t  of  German  fahrt,  and 
the  th  or  s  of  our  fareth  or  fares. 

It  was  pointed  out  above  (p.  41)  that  in  the  lice  of 
sothllce  we  have  the  full  case-form  of  a  compounded 
adjective,  out  of  which  has  been  made  later  the  adjec- 
tive and  adverbial  suffix  ly.  Here  is  illustrated  another 
department  of  the  action  of  the  abbreviating  tendency; 
its  aid  is  essential  to  the  conversion  of  what  was  once 
an  independent  word  into  an  affix,  an  appended  element 
denoting  relation.  So  long  as  the  word  which  enters- 
into  combination  with  another  retains  its  own  shape 
unaltered,  the  product  is  a  compound  only;  but  when, 
by  phonetic  change,  its  origin  and  identity  with  the  still 
subsisting  independent  word  are  hidden,  the  compound 
becomes  rather  a  derivative.  Phonetic  abbreviation  has 
made  the  difference  between  godly,  for  example — a 
formed  word,  containing  a  radical  and  a  formative  ele- 
ment— and  godlike,  a  mere  compound.  Just  so,  in  Ger- 
man, the  adjective  suffix  lich  has  become  distinct  from 
gleich  (which  has,  besides,  a  prefix) ;  and  in  that  Ian- 


ABBREVIATING  TENDENCY.  53 

guage  gottlich  and  gottergleich  stand  in  the  same  man- 
ner side  by  side,  the  one  a  derivative  and  the  other  a 
compound.  At  an  earlier  period  of  Germanic  language- 
history,  the  same  influence  helped  to  convert  the  com- 
pound hyngre-dide,  '  hunger-did/  into  the  grammatical 
form  hyngre-dc,  '  hunger-ed ; '  and,  in  vastly  more  an- 
cient time,  to  shape  over  certain  pronominal  elements 
into  the  personal  endings  anti,  masi,  and  ti,  spoken  of 
above. 

Thus  the  tendency  to  economy,  in  the  very  midst  of 
its  destructive  action,  is  at  the  same  time  constructive. 
It  begins  with  producing  those  very  forms  which  it  is 
afterward  to  mutilate  and  wear  out.  Without  it,  com- 
pound words  and  aggregated  phrases  would  remain  ever 
such.  Its  influence  is  always  cast  in  favor  of  subordi- 
nating in  substance  what  is  subordinate  in  meaning,  of 
integrating  and  unifying  what  would  otherwise  be  of 
loQse  structure — in  short,  of  disguising  the  derivation 
of  linguistic  signs,  making  them  signs  merely,  and  signs 
easy  to  manage.  The  point  is  one  to  which  we  shall 
have  to  return  in  discussing  (in  the  seventh  chapter)  the 
third  great,  class  of  linguistic  changes,  the  production 
of  new  words  and  forms. 

But  while  the  tendency  is  everywhere  one,  the  ways 
in  which  it  manifests  itself  by  abbreviation  are  very 
various,  each  needing  for  its  explanation  a  full  under- 
standing of  the  habits  of  the  language  in  which  it  ap- 
pears. The  Germanic  languages  are  all  characterized 
by  a  pretty  strong  accentual  stress,  laid  in  general  on 
the  first  or  radical  syllable  of  their  words,  derivative  or 
inflectional,  and  on  the  first  members  of  compounds. 
This  mode  of  accentuation  is  itself  an  example  of  pho- 
netic change;  for  it  belongs  to  none  of  the  related  lan- 
guages, not  even  to  the  Slavonic,  generally  regarded  as 


54    CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

nearest  of  kin  with  the  Germanic.  A  result  of  it  has 
been  that  at  a  later  time,  and  quite  independent!}7  in 
the  different  Germanic  languages,  the  endings  or  suf- 
fixes, of  inflection  or  derivation,  have  generally  lost 
their  distinctive  vowels,  and  come  to  be  spoken  with 
the  more  neutral  e;  this  change  belongs,  for  example, 
to  the  transition  from  Old  to  Middle  High-German,  and 
from  Anglo-Saxon  to  Old  English.  To  it  is  also  in 
part  due  (though  also  to  a  more  mental  willingness  to 
abandon  distinctions  formerly  established  and  main- 
tained) the  extensive  loss  of  endings  to  which  these 
languages  have  been  subjected,  and  which  appears  most 
of  all  in  our  English.  In  French,  the  history  of  change 
has  been  somewhat  different:  there  has  been  no  gen- 
eral shift  of  the  place  of  the  accent  as  compared  with 
Latin ;  but  there  has  been  a  wholesale  abbreviation  "and 
loss  of  whatever  in  Latin  followed  the  accented  sylla- 
ble, which  has  accordingly  become  (leaving  out  of  ac- 
count the  mute  e)  the  final  one  of  every  regular  French 
word:  so  peuple  from  populum,  faire  from  facere, 
prendre  from  prehtmdere,  He  from  both  cestatem  and 
statum.  This  last  example — ete  from  stdtum — draws 
aside  our  attention  for  a  moment  to  a  class  of  altera- 
tions which,  by  a  curious  turn,  end  in  the  extension  of 
a  word's  syllabic  form.  To  the  Gallic  peoples  who 
adopted  Latin  speech,  the  utterance  of  an  s  before  a 
mute — Tc,  t,  or  p — seemed  a  difficulty  which  should  be 
avoided:  just  as  to  us,  later,  the  utterance  of  a  g  or  fc 
before  n  (in  gnaw,  knife,  etc.).  But,  instead  of  drop- 
ping the  trying  letter,  they  at  first  prefixed  a  vowel  to 
it,  to  make  it  more  manageable,  producing  such  words 
as  escape  (Lat.  scapus),  esprit  (spiritiis),  estomac  (sto- 
machus).  And  then,  by  an  actual  abbreviation,  and  a 
common  one,  the  sibilant  has  in  later  times  been  usu- 


SILENT  LETTERS.  55 

ally  dropped  out,  and  a  large  class  of  words  like  ecole 
(schola),  epoux  (sponsus),  and  etude  (studium),  is  left 
in  the  French  vocabulary.  Another  consequence  of  the 
same  difference  of  accent  is  the  greater  mutilation  of 
the  radical  part  of  the  word  in  the  Eomanic  languages 
(especially  French)  than  in  the  Germanic;  and  many  of 
its  results  have  passed  into  English:  thus,  preach  (Fr. 
precher)  from  prcedicare,  cost  (Fr.  couter)  from  con- 
stare,  count  (Fr.  compter)  from  computare,  blame  (Fr. 
bldmer)  from  blasfemare  (Gr.  ^Xaa-^fxelv) .  Words, 
however,  like  such  and  which  (A.-S.  swylc  and  hwylc, 
Scotch  whillc,  Germ,  soldi  and  welch),  from  so-like  and 
luho-like,  show  plainly  that  this  disguising  fusion  of  two 
parts  of  a  word  is  by  no  means  limited  to  the  French 
part  of  English. 

One  conspicuous  result  of  these  processes  is  the 
presence  of  numberless  "  silent  letters  "  in  the  written 
forms  of  languages  like  French  and  English,  in  which 
the  omission  of  sounds  formerly  uttered  has  been  go- 
ing on  during  the  period  of  record  by  writing.  Such 
letters  are  relics  of  modes  of  utterance  formerly  preva- 
lent. 

This  must  suffice  by  way  of  illustration  of  the  tend- 
ency to  ease  as  manifested  in  abbreviation.  But  the 
other  mode  of  its  action,  consisting  in  the  alteration  of 
the  retained  elements  of  words,  the  substitution  of  one 
sound  for  another,  is  quite  as  extensive,  and  much  more 
intricate  and  difficult.  We  have  already  noted  exam- 
ples of  it :  the  abbreviated  piskop,  we  saw,  has  been 
mouthed  over  into  bishop;  and  we  reviewed  above  (p. 
37)  some  of  the  principal  differences  which  separate 
our  vowel-utterance  from  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon. 
The  consistency  of  our  vowel-system,  especially,  has 
been  completely  broken  up  by  these  changes,  the  per- 


56    CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

vading  nature  of  which  is  attested  by  the  strange  names 
we  give  to  our  vowel-sounds.  The  original  and  proper 
sound  of  a  is  that  in  far,  father:  what  we  call  "long 
a  "  (fate)  is  really  long  e,  the  nearest  correspondent  in 
quality  to  the  "  short  e  "  of  met,  which  we  continue  to 
call  by  its  right  name  because  we  have  not  generally  al- 
tered its  ancient  sound;  our  "short  a"  (fat)  is  a  new 
tone,  intermediate  between  a  (far)  and  e  (fate),  and 
none  of  our  letters  was  devised  for  its  representation. 
In  like  manner,  our  "  long  e  "  (mete)  is  really  a  long  i, 
and  what  we  call  "long  i"  (pine)  is  a  diphthong,  ai. 
And,  on  the  other  side,  our  "long  u"  (pure)  is  not 
even  a  diphthong,  but  a  syllable,  yu,  composed  of  semi- 
vowel and  vowel,  and  our  "short  o  "  (not)  and  "short 
w"  (but)  are  new  sounds,  having  nothing  to  do  with 
"  long  o  "  and  "  long  u,"  and,  of  course,  possessing  no 
hereditary  and  rightful  representative  in  our  alphabet. 
It  is  somewhat  as  if  we  were  to  call  our  elms  "  tall  li- 
lacs," and  our  rose-bushes  "  short  maples."  That  our 
written  vowels  have  from  three  to  nine  values  each,  is 
owing  to  the  fact  that  we  have  altered  their  original 
unitary  sounds  in  so  many  different  ways  during  the 
historic  period;  and  there  lies  yet  further  back  another 
like  history  of  change.  This  kind  of  change  has  been 
carried  on  upon  a  larger  scale  in  English  than  in  almost 
any  other  known  language;  but  its  effects  are  found 
abundantly  in  every  other:  the  French,  for  example, 
has  given  to  the  old  Latin  u  a  mixed  i  and  u  sound  (the 
German  ii),  and  has  converted  the  old  diphthong  ou 
into  an  u(oo) -sound  (being  curiously  paralleled  in  both 
respects  by  the  ancient  Greek)  ;  it  has  taken  a  strange 
fancy  for  the  diphthongal  oi  (nearly  equal  to  our  wa  of 
was),  and  substitutes  it  for  all  manner  of  ancient 
sounds :  as  in  moi  for  me,  crois  for  credo,  mois  for  men- 


CONSONANT  CHANGES.  57 

sis,  quoi  for  quid,  foi  for  fides,  loi  for  legem,  noir  for 
nigrum,  noix  for  nucem;  and  so  on. 

The  vowels  are  much  more  liable  to  wholesale  alter- 
ation than  are  the  consonants,  and  in  our  specimen-pas- 
sage the  indications  of  consonantal  change  are  rather 
scanty.  Ofer,  however,  has  become  over  with  us,  by 
the  conversion  of  a  surd  into  its  corresponding  sonant 
sound,  a  phenomenon  of  very  wide  range  and  great 
frequency  in  language;  and  the  same  change  has  passed 
upon  the  final  s  of  his  and  ceceras,  making  of  it  a  z, 
though  without  change  of  spelling.  But  if  we  look- 
further  away,  among  the  tongues  kindred  with  ours,  we 
shall  discover  signs  in  plenty  of  consonantal  mutation. 
Dceg  is  in  German  tag,  with  t  for  d,  and  hyngrede  is 
hungerte;  and  if  we  were  to  go  through  the  whole  vo- 
cabulary of  the  two  languages,  we  should  find  this  the 
prevailing  relation,  and  be  led  to  set  up  the  "  law  "  that 
English  d  and  German  t  correspond  to  one  another. 
Again,  etan  is  essen  in  German,  with  an  s-sound  for  t: 
and  this,  too,  is  a  constant  relation;  nor  is  it  otherwise 
with  thd,  which  is  German  die,  with  d  for  th.  But  etan 
and  essen  answer  to  Latin  edere,  Greek  ehca,  Sanskrit 
ad;  and  thd  and  die  are  the  two  regular  Germanic 
forms  of  the  old  pronominal  root  ta  (Gr.  to,  etc.,  Skt. 
tad,  etc.)  :  and  these,  too,  are  general  facts;  insomuch 
that  comparative  grammarians  are  led  to  set  up  the 
"  law  "  that  a  ^-sound,  as  found  in  most  of  the  languages 
of  our  family,  is  regularly  a  th  in  part  of  the  Germanic 
dialects  and  a  d  in  others;  that  a  cZ-sound,  in  like  man- 
ner, is  a  t  or  an  s;  and  that  to  English  d  and  German  t 
an  aspirate,  th  or  dh,  corresponds  in  Greek  and  San- 
skrit. This  is,  indeed,  the  famous  "  Grimm's  Law,"  of  ^ 
the  permutation  or  rotation  of  mutes  in  Germanic 
speech.     It  is  only  an  example — to  be  sure,  an  unusu- 


58    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

ally  curious  and  striking  example — of  what  is  univer- 
sally true  between  related  languages:  their  sounds,  in 
corresponding  words,  are  by  no  means  always  the  same ; 
they  are  diverse,  rather,  but  diverse  by  a  constant  dif- 
ference; there  exists  between  them  a  fixed  relation, 
though  it  is  not  one  of  identity.  Hence,  in  the  com- 
parison of  two  languages,  a  first  point  to  which  atten- 
tion has  to  be  directed  is  this :  what  sounds  in  the  one, 
vowel  or  consonantal,  correspond  to  what  sounds  in  the 
other.  This  condition  of  things  is  only  a  necessary  re- 
sult of  the  fact,  already  noted,  that  the  mode  of  pro- 
nunciation of  every  language  is  all  the  time  undergoing 
a  change:  a  change  now  more  and  now  less  important 
and  pervading,  but  never  entirely  intermitted;  and  that 
no  two  languages  change  after  precisely  the  same  fash- 
ion. In  presence  of  such  a  phenomenon  as  that  last  in- 
stanced, the  student  of  language  has  to  inquire  which 
(if  any)  of  the  sounds,  t,  d,  th,  dh,  s  is  in  any  given 
case  the  original,  through  what  steps  of  successive 
change  each  varying  result  has  been  reached,  and,  if 
within  his  reach,  what  cause  has  governed  the  course  of 
mutation.  t  ,. 

And,  heterogeneous  as  the  facts  may  at  first  sight 
appear,  the  student  soon  finds  that  they  are  very  far 
from  being  a  mere  confusion  of  lawless  changes;  they 
have  their  own  methods  and  rules.  One  sound  passes 
into  another  that  is  physically  akin  with  it :  that  is  to 
say,  that  is  produced  by  the  same  organs,  or  otherwise 
in  a  somewhat  similar  manner;  and  the  movement  of 
transition  follows  a  general  direction,  or  else  is  governed 
by  specific  causes.  This  has  caused  the  processes  of 
articulation  to  be  profoundly  studied,  as  part  of  the 
science  of  language.  And  such  is  the  interest  and  im- 
portance of  the  study  that  we  cannot  avoid  dwelling 


FORMATION   OP  ARTICULATE  SOUNDS.  59 

upon  it  here  a  little:  not  long  enough,  indeed,  to  pene- 
trate to  its  depths,  but  at  least  until  we  are  able  to  gain 
some  idea  of  our  spoken  alphabet  as  of  an  orderly  sys- 
tem of  sounds,  and  of  the  lines  and  degrees  of  relation- 
ship which  bind  its  members  together,  and  help  to  de- 
termine their  transitions. 

The  organs  by  which  alphabetic  sounds  are  produced 
are  the  lungs,  the  larynx,  and  the  parts  of  the  mouth 
above  the  larynx.  The  lungs  are,  as  it  were,  the  bel- 
lows of  the  organ;  they  simply  produce  a  current  of 
air,  passing  out  through  the  throat,  and  varying  in  ra- 
pidity or  force  according  to  the  requirements  of  the 
speaker.  The  larynx  is  a  kind  of  box  at  the  upper  end 
of  the  windpipe,  and  contains  what  is  equivalent  to  the 
reed  of  the  organ-pipe,  with  the  muscular  apparatus  for 
its  adjustment.  From  the  sides  of  the  box,  namely, 
spring  forth  a  pair  of  half-valves,  of  which  the  mem- 
branous edges,  the  "  vocal  chords,"  are  capable  of  being 
brought  close  together  in  the  middle  of  the  passage, 
and  made  tense,  so  that  the  passing  current  of  air  sets 
them  in  vibration;  and  this  vibration,  communicated  to 
the  air,  is  reported  to  our  ears  as  sound.  In  ordinary 
breathing,  the  valves  are  relaxed  and  retracted,  leaving 
a  wide  and  rudely  triangular  opening  for  the  passage 
of  the  air.  Thus  the  larynx  gives  the  element  of  tone, 
accompanied  with  variety  of  pitch :  and  how  important 
a  part  of  speaking  this  latter  is,  only  they  can  fully  re- 
alize who  have  heard  the  performance  of  an  automatic 
speaking-machine,  with  its  dreadful  monotone.  Above 
the  vibrating  reed-apparatus  is  set,  after  the  fashion  of 
a  sounding-box,  the  cavity  of  the  pharynx,  with  that  of 
the  mouth,  and  the  nasal  passage;  and  movements  of 
the  throat  and  mouth-organs  under  voluntary  control  so 
alter  the  shape  and  size  of  this  box  as  to  give  to  the 


60    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OP  WORDS. 

tone  produced  a  variety  of  characters,  or  to  modify  it 
into  a  variety  of  tones — which  are  the  sounds  of  our 
spoken  alphabet.  A  concise  description  of  voice,  then, 
is  this :  it  is  the  audible  result  of  a  column  of  air  emitted 
by  the  lungs,  impressed  with  sonancy  and  variety  of 
pitch  by  the  larynx,  and  individualized  by  the  mouth- 
organs. 

To  describe  in  detail  the  construction  of  the  vocal 
apparatus,  and  the  movements  of  the  muscles  and  car- 
tilages and  membranes  which  cause  and  modify  the 
vibrations,,  belongs  to  physiology;  to  determine  the 
form  and  composition  of  the  vibrations  which  produce 
the  audible  variety  of  effects  upon  the  ear,  belongs  to 
acoustics :  the  part  of  phonetics,  as  a  branch  of  linguis- 
tic science,  is  to  follow  and  describe,  as  closely  as  may 
be,  the  voluntary  changes  of  position  of  the  mouth- 
organs,  etc.,  which  determine  the  various  sounds.  These 
are  in  part  easy  of  observation,  in  part  much  more  dif- 
ficult; but  the  main  points,  nearly  all  that  we  need  to 
take  account  of  here,  are  within  the  reach  of  careful 
and  continued  self-observation.  And  no  one  can  claim 
to  have  any  proper  understanding  of  phonetic  ques- 
tions, unless  he  has  so  studied  that  he  fairly  follows  and 
understands  the  movements  that  go  on  in  his  own 
mouth  in  speaking,  and  can  arrange  his  spoken  alpha- 
bet into  a  systematic  and  consistent  scheme.  Such  a 
scheme,  for  the  ordinary  sounds  composing  the  English 
alphabet,  we  will  attempt  here  to  set  up. 

Every  alphabetic  system  must  start  from  the  sound 
a  (of  far,  father)  ;  for  this  is  the  fundamental  tone  of 
the  human  voice,  the  purest  intonated  product  of  lungs 
and  throat;  if  we  open  the  mouth  and  fauces  to  their 
widest,  getting  out  of  the  way  everything  that  should 
modify  the  issuing  current,  this  is  the  sound  that  is 


ARRANGEMENT  OP  THE  ALPHABET.     61 

heard.  Upon  this  openest  tone  various  modifications 
are  produced  by  narrowing  the  oral  cavity,  at  different 
points  and  to  different  degrees.  The  less  marked  modi- 
fications, which,  though  they  alter  decidedly  the  quality 
of  the  tone,  yet  leave  predominant  the  element  of  tone, 
of  material,  give  rise  to  the  sounds  which  we  call  vow- 
els. But  the  cavity  may  be  so  narrowed,  at  one  and 
another  point,  that  the  friction  of  the  breath,  as  driven 
out  through  the  aperture,  forms  the  conspicuous  ele- 
ment in  the  audible  product;  this,  then,  is  a  sound  of 
very  different  character,  a  fricative  consonant.  And 
the  narrowing  of  the  organs  may  be  pushed  even  to 
the  point  of  complete  closure,  the  element  of  form,  of 
oral  modification,  coming  thus  to  prevail  completely 
over  that  of  material,  of  tone :  the  product,  in  that  case, 
is  made  distinctly  audible  only  as  the  contact  is  broken ; 
and  we  call  it  a  mute. 

This  brief  statement  suggests  the  plan  on  which  the 
systematic  arrangement  of  every  human  alphabet  is  to 
be  made.  It  must  lie  between  the  completely  open  a 
(far)  and  the  completely  close  mutes;  these  are  its 
natural  and  necessary  limits;  and  it  may  be  expected 
to  fall  into  classes  according  to  the  intermediate  de- 
grees of  closure.  But  there  are  also  other  lines  of 
relationship  in  it.  Theoretically,  an  indefinite  num- 
ber of  mute-closures  are  possible,  all  along  the  mouth, 
from  the  lips  to  as  far  back  in  the  throat  as  the  organs 
can  be  brought  together;  in  practice,  however,  they 
are  found  to  be  prevailingly  three :  one  in  the  front, 
made  by  lip  against  lip,  the  labial  closure,  giving  p; 
one  in  the  back  of  the  mouth,  made  against  the  soft 
palate  by  the  rear  upper  surface  of  the  tongue,  the 
palatal  (or  guttural)  closure,  giving  Jc;  and  one  inter- 
mediate between  the  other  two,  made  by  the  point  or 


{/ 


62 


CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 


front  of  the  tongue  against  the  roof  of  the  mouth  near 
the  front  teeth,  the  lingual  (or  dental)  closure,  giving  t. 
These  are  the  only  mute-closures  found  in  English,  or 
French,  or  German;  or  even  in  the  majority  of  tongues 
in  the  world.  And  the  same  tendency  toward  a  triple 
classification,  of  front,  back,  and  intermediate,  appears 
also  in  the  other  classes  of  sounds,  so  that  these  arrange 
themselves,  in  the  main,  nearly  upon  the  lines  of  gradual 
closure  proceeding  from  the  neutrally  open  a  (far)  to 
the  shut  p,  t,  k.  This  adds,  then,  the  other  element 
which  is  needed  in  order  to  convert  the  mass  of  articu- 
late utterances  into  an  orderly  system.  We  have  below 
the  English  alphabet  arranged  upon  the  plan  described, 
and  will  go  on  to  consider  it  in  more  detail. 


r 


sonant,  i 


ng 


surd. 

h 

sonant. 

zh 

surd. 

sh 

sonant. 

surd. 

sonant. 

9 

surd. 

k 

palatal 

series. 

r,l 


z 
s 

dh 
th 
d 
t 
lingual 


-  vowels. 

semivowels. 
ryi     nasals, 
aspiration. 

>  sibilants. 
L  spirants. 

V  mutes. 


P 
labial 
series 


Along  with  1-,  t,  p,  in  the  first  place,  go  their  near- 
est kindred,  g,  d,  b.  These  are  their  sonant  (or  vocal, 
phthongal,  intonated)  counterparts.  In  the  former, 
namely,  there  is  no   audible  utterance,   but  complete 


SURD  AND  SONANT  SOUNDS.        63 

silence,  during  the  continuance  of  the  closure ;  the  anti- 
thesis to  a  is  absolute;  the  explosion  is  their  whole  sen- 
sible substance.  In  the  latter  there  is,  even  while  the 
closure  lasts,  a  tone  produced  by  the  vibration  of  the 
vocal  chords,  a  stream  of  air  sufficient  to  support  vibra- 
tion for  a  very  brief  time  being  forced  up  from  the 
lungs  into  the  closed  cavity  or  receiving-box  of  the 
pharynx  and  mouth.  This  is  the  fundamental  distinc- 
tion of  "  surd  "  and  "  sonant  "  sounds ;  anything  else  is 
merely  a  consequence  of  this  and  subordinate  to  it ;  the 
names  strong  and  weak,  hard  and  soft,  sharp  and  flat, 
and  so  on,  founded  (with  more  or  less  of  misapprehen- 
sion added)  upon  these  subordinate  characteristics,  are 
to  be  rejected.  The  difference  between  pa  and  ba, 
then,  is  that  the  sonant  utterance  begins  in  the  former 
just  when  the  contact  is  broken,  and  in  the  latter  just 
before;  in  ab,  it  continues  a  moment  after  the  contact 
is  made ;  in  aba,  it  is  uninterrupted  and  continuous : 
and  so  also  with  d  and  g. 

But  there  is  a  third  product  of  the  same  three  posi- 
tions of  mute-closure.  By  dropping,  namely,  the  veil 
of  the  palate,  which  in  ordinary  utterance  closes  the 
passage  from  the  pharynx  into  the  nose,  the  intonated 
current  of  b,  d,  g  is  allowed  entrance  to  the  nose  and 
exit  there:  and  the  result  is  the  class  of  nasals  (or  "  res- 
onants"),  m,  n,  and  ng  (as  in  singing).  Here,  though 
there  is  closure  of  the  mouth-organs,  the  tone  is  so 
sonorous  and  continuable  that  the  breach  of  contact,  or 
explosion,  is  reduced  to  a  very  subordinate  value,  and 
the  class  belongs  high  up  in  the  alphabet,  toward  the 
vowels. 

As  a  general  rule  (exceptions  to  it  are  not  com- 
mon), any  language  that  has  erther  of  these  three  prod- 
ucts of  a  given  mute-closure  will  have  also  the  other 


64    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

two :  thus,  the  presence  of  a  p  in  the  alphabet  implies 
also  that  of  a  &  and  an  m;  and  so  on. 

In  the  older  tongues  of  our  family,  and  even  in 
some  modern  ones,  both  of  our  own  and  of  other  fami-. 
lies,  there  are  fourth  and  fifth  products  of  the  same 
positions,  the  former  made  by  letting  slip  an  audible 
bit  of  breath  or  flatus,  a  brief  h,  after  the  simple  mute, 
turning  p  into  ph  (pronounced  as  written),  and  so  on; 
the  latter,  the  sonant  bh,  of  more  doubtful  character. 
These  are  called  aspirate  mutes,  or,  briefly,  aspirates. 

Next  to  the  mutes  in  regard  to  degree  of  closure 
are  the  class  of  so-called  "  fricatives,"  defined  above  as 
containing  a  rustling  or  friction  of  the  breath  through 
a  narrowed  aperture  as  their  main  element.  If  the 
lips  are  brought  together  in  loose  instead  of  close  con- 
tact, and  the  breath  forced  out  between  them,  there  is 
heard  an  /-sound;  or,  if  the  breath  be  intonated,  a  v- 
sound.  These,  however,  are  not  precisely  our  English 
or  French  (nor  the  general  German)  /  and  v;  for,  in 
the  latter,  the  tips  of  the  teeth  are  brought  forward 
and  laid  upon  the  lower  lip,  and  the  expulsion  is  made 
between  them;  giving  a  product  somewhat  differently 
shaded,  a  dentilabial  instead  of  a  purely  labial  sound. 
A  relaxation  of  the  lingual  contact,  in  like  manner, 
gives  the  s  and  z  sounds;  and  that  of  the  palatal  gives 
the  German  ch  (its  sonant  counterpart  is  very  rare). 
Practically,  however,  it  is  found  convenient  to  divide 
the  fricatives  into  two  sub-classes :  s  and  z  have  a  pe- 
culiar quality  which  we  call  sibilant  or  hissing;  and  the 
same  is  shared  by  the  sh  and  the  zh  (in  azure,  vision) 
sounds,  which  are  produced  farther  back  upon  the  roof 
of  the  mouth,  or  in  a  more  palatal  position.  These 
two  pairs,  accordingly,  we  set  by  themselves,  as  lingual 
and  palatal  "  sibilants."    Then,  along  with  the  /  and  v, 


VOWEL  AND  CONSONANT  SERIES.  65 

as  akin  with  them,  especially  in  their  dentilabial  vari- 
ety, we  have  the  two  English  ^/i-sounds,  surd  in  thin 
and  sonant  in  then  (written  dh  in  the  scheme),  real 
dentilinguals,  produced  between  the  tongue  and  teeth. 
These  four,  with  the  (German)  c/i-sound,  we  class  as 
"  spirants."  Historically,  they  have  a  special  kinship 
in  that  they  are  all  alike  frequent  products  of  the 
alteration  of  an  aspirate  mute;  hence  it  is  that  they 
are  so  often,  in  various  languages,  written  with  ph,  th, 
ch  (=kh). 

A  like  tendency  to  the  points  of  oral  action  already 
defined  appears  in  the  vowels,  the  opener  tone-sounds. 
An  i  (in  pique,  pick)  is  a  palatal  vowel,  made  by  an 
approach  of  the  flat  of  the  tongue  toward  the  palate 
where  its  contact  produces  a  Jc;  an  u  {rule,  pull)  in- 
volves a  rounding  approach  of  the  lips,  the  organs 
whose  contact  makes  a  p  (although  not  without  accom- 
panying action  at  the  base  of  the  tongue  also).  And 
between  a  (far)  and  i  stands  e  {they,  then),  made  by  a 
less  degree  of  palatal  approach,  as  o  (note,  obey)  be- 
tween a  and  u.  And  again,  the  sound  of  fat,  man 
03  in  the  scheme)  stands  between  a  and  e,  as  that  of 
all,  what  (a  in  the  scheme)  between  a  and  o.  Eepre- 
senting  for  the  moment  the  pure  fricatives  by  Teh  and 
ph,  we  have  the  palatal  series  a  03  e  i  Jch  Jc,  and  the 
labial  series  a  a  o  u  ph  p,  which  are  true  series  all  the 
way  through,  made  by  gradually  increasing  degrees  of 
approximation  of  the  same  parts  of  the  mouth  until 
complete  closure  is  reached. 

There  is  still  one  class  to  be  noticed:  that  of  the 
semivowels,  or  sounds  which  stand  nearly  on  the  divi- 
sion-line between  vowel  and  consonant.  I  (pique)  and 
u  (rule)  are  the  closest  sounds  we- can  make  with  reten- 
tion of  the  predominant  tone-quality  which  constitutes 


GO    CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

a  vowel.  But  so  close  are  the}',  that  it  is  only  necessary 
to  abbreviate  them  sufficiently,  making  them  merely 
starting-points  from  which  to  reach  another  vowel- 
sound,  in  order  to  convert  them  into  consonants,  y  and 
w;  these  differ,  at  the  utmost,  only  infinitesimally  in 
articulating  position  from  i  and  u.  And  with  them  be- 
long the  r  and  I,  lingual  semivowels,  used  in  many  lan- 
guages also  as  vowels;  the  I,  even  in  English,  in  able, 
eagle,  etc.  The  r  is  produced  between  the  tongue-tip 
and  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  and  is  so  generally  trilled  or 
vibrated  that  trilling  is  apt  to  be  given  as  its  distinc- 
tive characteristic;  the  I  sets  the  tip  of  the  tongue 
against  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  but  leaves  the  sides 
open  for  the  free  escape  of  the  intonated  breath. 

We  have  one  more  pair  of  simple  vowels,  that  in 
hurt  and  hut  (d  in  the  scheme),  the  specific  quality  of 
which  is  due  to  a  dimming  action  along  the  whole 
mouth  rather  than  an  approach  at  a  definite  point  or 
points,  and  which  are  thus  a  duller  kind  of  o;  they 
are  put  in  the  centre  of  the  vowel-triangle  rather  be- 
cause they  belong  nowhere  else  than  because  they  belong 
precisely  there. 

The  distinctions  of  long  and  short  vowel,  although 
in  English  they  always  involve  differences  of  quality 
as  well  as  of  quantity,  and  the  three  compound  vowel- 
sounds  or  diphthongs,  ai  ("long  i"  of  aisle,  isle),  a  a 
(out,  how),  and  Ai  (oil,  boy),  are  for  simplicity's  sake 
left  unnoticed  in  the  scheme.  And  it  remains  only 
to  find  a  place  in  it,  and  a  definition,  for  the  somewhat 
anomalous  h.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  classes  of 
mutes  and  fricatives  the  sounds  go  in  pairs,  one  pro- 
duced by  mere  breath,  the  other  by  intonated  breath, 
forced  through  the  same  position  of  the  organs;  while 
this  is  not  the  case  with  the  remaining  and  opener 


THE  ALPHABETIC  SCHEME.  67 

classes  of  sounds.  We  may  define  the  difference  in  a 
general  way  thus :  after  a  certain  degree  of  closeness  is 
reached,  simple  breath  is  sufficiently  characterized  to 
give  a  constituent  to  the  alphabet  for  every  articulat- 
ing position;  short  of  that  degree,  only  tone  is  fully 
distinctive;  surd  breath,  though  somewhat  differen- 
tiated in  the  several  positions,  is  not  enough  so  to 
furnish  a  separate  alphabetic  element  in  each;  the 
various  breaths  count  only  as  one  letter — namely,  the 
h.  The  h,  the  pure  aspiration,  is  an  expulsion  of  flatus 
through  the  position  of  the  adjacent  letter,  whether 
vowel,  semivowel,  or  nasal;  in  English,  it  occurs  only 
before  a  vowel,  or  before  w  and  y,  in  such  words  as 
when  and  hue.  It  is,  then,  the  common  surd  to  the 
three  classes  of  sonant  sounds  just  mentioned. 

The  scheme  thus  drawn  up  and  described  may  be 
taken  as  a  general  model,  on  the  plan  of  which  the 
spoken  alphabet  of  any  language  may  best  be  arranged 
in  order  to  the  determination  of  its  internal  relations 
and  to  its  comparison  with  other  alphabets.  Though 
not  accurate  to  the  very  last  detail,  it  exhibits  more  of 
the  relations  of  alphabetic  sounds,  and  exhibits  them 
more  truly,  than  any  other  plan  that  can  be  adopted. 
And,  restricted  as  it  is  in  number  of  sounds,  as  com- 
pared with  the  immense  variety — not  less  than  three  or 
four  hundred — which  enter  into  human  speech,  it  yet 
includes  those  sounds  which  make  up  the  bulk  of  all 
human  speech,  and  of  which  many  of  the  others  are 
slightly  differentiated  variations.  The  possible  num- 
ber of  human  articulations  is  theoretically  infinite;  but 
practically  it  is  rather  narrowly  limited;  and  a  system 
like  our  own,  which  contains  about  forty-four  distinctly 
characterized  sounds,  is  hardly  excelled  in  richness, 
among  tongues  ancient  or  modern. 


68    CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

Our  scheme  is  to  be  valued,  especially,  as  putting 
in  a  true  light  the  relations  of  vowel  and  consonant: 
which,  though  their  distinction  is  of  the  highest  im- 
portance in  phonetics,  are  by  no  means  separate  and 
independent  systems,  but  only  poles,  as  it  were,  in  one 
continuous  unitary  series,  and  with  a  doubtful  or  neu- 
tral territory  between  them :  they  are  simply  the  opener 
and  closer  sounds  of  the  alphabetic  system.  Upon  their 
alternation  and  antithesis  depends  the  syllabic  or  "  artic- 
ulate "  character  of  human  speech :  the  stream  of  utter- 
ance is  broken  into  articuli,  '  joints,'  by  the  interven- 
tion of  the  closer  sounds  between  the  opener,  connecting 
the  latter  at  the  same  time  that  they  separate  them, 
giving  distinctness  and  flexibility,  and  the  power  of 
endlessly  variable  combination.  A  mere  succession  of 
vowels  passing  into  one  another  would  be  wanting  in 
definite  character;  it  would  be  rather  sing-song  than 
speech;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  mere  succession  of 
consonants,  though  pronounceable  by  sufficient  effort, 
would  be  an  indistinct  and  disagreeable  sputter. 

Another  advantage  of  the  same  arrangement  consists 
in  its  illustration  of  the  general  historical  development 
of  the  alphabet.  The  primitive  language  of  our  family 
had  not  half  the  sounds  given  in  the  scheme;  and  those 
which  it  had  were  the  extreme  members  of  the  sys- 
tem: among  the  vowels,  only  a,  i,  and  u,  the  corners 
of  the  vowel  triangle;  among  the  consonants,  mainl}r 
the  mutes,  along  with  the  nasals  m  and  n,  which  are 
also  mutes  as  concerns  their  mouth-position ;  of  the 
whole  double  class  of  fricatives,  only  the  s.  The  I  was 
not  yet  distinctly  separated  from  the  r,  nor  the  w  and 
y  from  u  and  i.  There  has  been  a  filling-up  of  the 
scheme  by  the  production  of  such  new  sounds  as  are 
intermediate  in  character,  made  by  less  strongly  dif- 


NEWER  INTERMEDIATE  SOUNDS.  69 

ferentiated  positions  of  the  organs.  We  may  fairly 
say  that,  in  the  process  of  time,  with  greater  acquired 
skill  in  the  art  of  utterance,  men's  organs  have  come 
to  be  able  to  make  and  use  more  nicely  distinguished, 
more  slightly  shaded  tones  than  at  first.  This  is  no 
mere  loose  poetic  expression;  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
does  it  imply  any  organic  change  in  the  organs  of 
utterance.  The  case  is  only  as  in  any  other  department 
of  effort :  the  higher  skill  is  won  by  the  advanced  or 
adult  speakers,  and  the  shape  which  they  give  to  their 
inherited  speech  becomes  the  norm  toward  which  new 
learners  have  to  strive,  attaining  it  when  they  can. 

In  the  process,  too,  is  involved  an  evident  manifes-  •' 
tation  of  the  tendency  to  ease.  Not,  indeed,  that  the 
new  sounds  are  in  themselves  any  easier  than  the  old; 
on  the  contrary,  judged  by  some  tests,  they  are  harder : 
they  are  not  so  readily  learned  and  reproduced  by  chil- 
dren; they  are  not  so  frequently  met  with  in  the  gen- 
eral body  of  human  languages.  But  they  are  easier  to 
the  practised  speaker,  in  the  rapid  movements  of  con- 
tinuous utterance,  when  the  organs  are  making  constant 
quick  transitions  between  vowel  and  consonant,  between 
opener  and  closer  positions.  To  reduce  the  length  of 
swing  of  these  transitions,  by  reducing  the  openness  of 
the  open  sounds  and  the  closeness  of  the  close  ones,  is  an 
economy  which  the  articulating  organs — of  course,  un-  // 
consciously — find  out  for  themselves  by  experience  and 
learn  to  practise.  It  is  the  most  general  kind  of  assimi- 
lating influence  exerted  by  consonant  and  vowel  upon 
one  another:  each  class  draws  the  other  toward  itself; 
the  vowels  become  more  consonantal;  the  consonants  be- 
come more  vocalic.  Hence  the  prevailing  direction  of 
phonetic  change  is  from  the  extremities  toward  the  mid- 
dle of  the  alphabetic  scheme:  the  mutes  become  frica- 


70    CHANGE  OF  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

tives;  the  a  (far)  is  changed  to  e  (they)  and  i  (pique), 
or  to  o  (note)  and  u  (rule).  Movement  in  the  contrary 
direction  is  by  no  means  unknown;  but  it  is  exceptional 
or  under  special  causes :  it  is,  as  we  have  called  it  above, 
the  eddy  in  the  current.  The  central  classes,  of  nasals 
and  semivowels,  which  are  least  exposed  to  this  general 
movement,  are  also,  on  the  whole,  the  least  convertible 
of  the  alphabetic  sounds.  To  illustrate  the  effects  of 
the  tendency:  in  Sanskrit  (the  least  altered,  phonetical- 
ly, of  the  tongues  of  our  family),  the  a  (far)  is  full 
thirty  per  cent,  of  the  whole  utterance;  and  we  can  eas- 
ily reason  back  to  a  time  when  a  and  the  mutes  were 
three  quarters  of  the  sounds  heard  in  continuous  speech ; 
in  English,  the  most  altered,  a  is  only  about  half  of  one 
per  cent,  of  our  utterance,  while  i  (pique,,  pick)  and  d 
(hurt,  hut),  the  closest  and  thinnest  of  the  vowels,  are 
over  sixteen  per  cent. ;  and  the  fricatives  have  become 
rather  more  common  than  the  mutes  (each  class,  about 
eighteen  per  cent.).* 

We  have  called  this  a  process  of  assimilation;  and 
under  the  same  comprehensive  head  may  be  grouped 
the  greater  part  of  the  other  phonetic  changes  that 
occur  in  language.  The  combinations  of  elements  to 
form  words,  their  contraction  by  the  omission  of  light 
vowels,  often  bring  into  contact  or  into  proximity 
sounds  which  cannot  be  so  uttered  without  too  much 
muscular  exertion :  it  is  eased  by  adapting  the  one  to 
the  other.  For  example,  many  combinations  of  surd 
consonant  with  sonant  have  that  degree  of  difficulty 
which  we  call  impossibility  (this  is  only  a  matter  of 
degree) ;  and  nothing  is  more  frequent  in  all  language 

*  See  the  author's  "  Oriental  and  Linguistic  Studies,"  second 
series  (1874),  where  many  of  the  questions  concerning  the  alphabet 
are  more  fully  discussed. 


ASSIMILATION  AND   DISSIMILATION.  71 

than  the  interchange  of  surd  and  sonant  utterance. 
There  is  also  a  more  general  movement  here :  since  the 
sonant  elements  in  connected  speech  are  (including  the 
vowels)  much  more  numerous  than  the  surd,  the  gen- 
eral weight  of  the  assimilative  force  is  in  the  direction 
of  sonancy,  and  surds  are  converted  into  sonants  more 
often  than  the  reverse. 

There  is  a  degree  of  assimilation  effected  in  vowels 
by  the  consonants  with  which  they  come  into  imme- 
diate connection;  yet  the  cases  are  rather  sporadic  and 
often  doubtful.  The  influence  of  vowels  on  other 
vowels,  even  when  separated  from  them  by  conso- 
nants, is  more  marked,  and  leads  to  some  important 
classes  of  phenomena.  The  difference  between  man 
and  men  is  ultimately  due  only  to  the  former  presence 
of  an  t-vowel  in  the  plural  ending,  which  colored  by 
anticipation  the  preceding  vowel :  in  Icelandic,  the 
effect  is  still  plainly  illustrated  in  the  forms  degi  and 
dogum  from  dagr.  In  the  Scythian  languages,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  the  final  vowel  of  the  base  which 
assimilates  that  of  the  following  suffixes,  as  will  be 
noted  hereafter  (p.  231). 

Though  assimilation  is  the  leading  principle  in  the 
mutual  adjustment  of  sounds,  its  opposite,  dissimilation, 
is  not  altogether  unknown,  as  the  close  recurrence  of 
two  acts  of  the  same  organs  is  felt  as  burdensome,  and 
avoided  by  the  alteration  of  one  of  them. 

Not  only  the  parts  of  the  same  words,  in  their  com- 
bination, but  also  separate  words,  in  their  collocation, 
affect  one  another;  and  the  influence  expresses  itself 
particularly  in  their  final  elements.  There  are  various 
circumstances  which  help  to  condition  this.  In  our 
own  and  the  majority  of  other  families  of  speech,  the 
formative  or  less  indispensable  element  comes  last,  and 


72    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

is  the  one  least  efficiently  conserved  by  the  sense  of  its 
importance.  Moreover,  all  experience  shows  that  an 
"  open  syllable,"  one  ending  with  an  open  or  vowel 
sound,  is  easier,  more  "  natural "  to  the  organs,  than  a 
closed  one,  ending  with  a  consonant.  A  mute,  indeed, 
is  hardly  audible  as  final,  unless  the  contact  is  broken 
again  with  a  puff  of  flatus;  and  something  of  the  same 
disability  clings  also  to  the  other  consonants.  The  dif- 
ficulty is  one  which  English-speakers  can  hardly  realize, 
since  they  allow  freely  every  consonant  in  their  alpha- 
bet (with  the  accidental  exception  of  the  2/1-sound)  at 
the  end  of  a  word,  or  of  a  syllable,  before  another  con- 
sonant; but  the  Polynesian  dialects,  for  example,  ad- 
mit no  groups  of  consonants  anywhere,  and  end  every 
word  with  a  vowel;  the  literary  Chinese  has  no  final 
consonant  except  a  nasal;  the  Greek,  none  save  v,  a,  p 
(n,  s,  r) ;  the  Sanskrit  allows  only  about  half  a  dozen, 
and  almost  never  a  group  of  more  than  one;  the  Italian 
rarely  has  any  final  consonant;  the  French  silences,  as 
a  rule,  all  save  c,  f,  I,  r;  the  German  tolerates  no  final 
sonant  mutes :  and  so  on. 

But  the  principle  of  ease  does  not  find  its  sole  exer- 
cise in  the  work  of  assimilation.  Nothing  is  more  fre- 
quent than  for  a  language  to  take  a  dislike,  as  it  were, 
to  some  particular  sound  or  class  of  sounds,  and  to  get 
rid  of  it  by  conversion  into  something  else.  We  found 
an  example  of  this  above  in  the  old  English  A-sound  of 
cniht,  etc.  Most  of  the  tongues  of  our  family  have  cast 
out  the  ancient  aspirate  mutes,  changing  them  to  simple 
mutes  or  to  spirants.  The  Greek  early  rejected  the 
y-sound,  and  then  the  w :  the  latter,  as  the  "  digamma," 
just  prolonging  its  existence  into  the  historical  period. 
Curious  caprices,  discordances  between  different  lan- 
guages as  to  their  predilections  and  aversions,   come 


MUTUAL  INTERCHANGE  OF  SOUNDS.     73 

abundantly  to  light  in  this  department  of  phonetic 
change.  Yet  more  exceptional  and  puzzling  are  the 
cases  of  interchange  between  two  sounds :  for  exam- 
ple, the  Armenian  mutual  exchange  of  surd  and  sonant 
(Dikran  for  Tigranes,  and  so  on)  :  to  which  the  cock- 
ney confusion  of  w  and  v,  and  of  the  presence  and 
absence  of  an  initial  h,  furnishes  a  familiar,  if  undig- 
nified, parallel.  And  of  a  comparative  difficulty  which 
is  at  least  as  the  square  of  the  number  of  elements  in- 
volved is  "  Grimm's  Law "  of  permutation  of  mutes, 
illustrated  above  (p.  57).  Phonetic  science  is  not  yet 
far  enough  advanced  to  deal  successfully  with  facts  like 
this;  no  attempted  explanation  of  the  particular  phe- 
nomenon in  question  does  much  more  than  ignore  its 
real  difficulties. 

It  must  be  carefully  noted,  indeed,  that  the  reach  of 
phonetics,  its  power  to  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  its 
facts  and  account  for  them,  is  only  limited.  There  is 
always  one  element  in  linguistic  change  which  refuses 
scientific  treatment :  namely,  the  action  of  the  human  \s~ 
will.  The  work  is  all  done  by  human  beings,  adapting 
means  to  ends,  under  the  impulse  of  motives  and  the 
guidance  of  habits  which  are  the  resultant  of  causes  so 
multifarious  and  obscure  that  they  elude  recognition 
and  defy  estimate.  The  phonetist  is  never  able  to  put 
himself  in  an  a  priori  position;  his  business  is  only  to 
note  the  facts,  to  determine  the  relation  between  the 
later  and  the  earlier,  and  to  account  for  the  change  as 
well  as  he  can,  showing  of  what  tendencies,  in  which  of 
their  forms,  it  may  be  accounted  the  result.  The  real 
effective  reason  of  a  given  phonetic  change  is  that  a 
community,  which  might  have  chosen  otherwise,  willed 
it  to  be  thus;  showing  thereby  the  predominance  of 
this  or  that  one  among  the  motives  which  a  careful 


Yi    CHANGE  OP  OUTER  FORM  OF  WORDS. 

induction  from  the  facts  of  universal  language  proves 
to  govern  men  in  this  department  of  their  action. 

The  tendency  of  phonetic  change  is  so  decidedly 
toward  the  abbreviation  and  mutilation  of  words  and 
forms  that  it  has  been,  suitably  enough,  termed  "  pho- 
netic decay."  Under  the  impulse  to  ease,  the  compo- 
nent elements  of  speech  are  first  unified,  then  unbuilt 
and  destroyed.  It  is  the  processes  of  combination  (to 
be  treated  of  in  the  seventh  chapter)  that  open  a  wide 
field  for  the  action  of  the  tendency;  if  language  had 
always  remained  in  its  original  simple  state,  the  sphere 
of  change  would  have  been  a  greatly  restricted  one,  and 
the  effects  far  less  comparable  to  decay. 

Before  quitting  the  subject  of  changes  of  external 
form,  we  must  give  a  moment's  attention  to  a  class  of 
changes  which  bear  a  very  different  character,  although 
their  cause  has  its  points  of  analogy  with  those  which 
we  have  been  considering:  the  class,  namely,  of  which 
we  found  instances  in  our  modern  ears  and  fared  (p. 
38),  as  compared  with  the  earlier  ear  and  for.  When 
phonetic  corruption  has  disguised  too  much,  or  has 
swept  away,  the  characteristics  of  a  form,  so  that  it 
becomes  an  exceptional  or  anomalous  case,  there  is 
an  inclination  to  remodel  it  on  a  prevailing  porm.  The 
greater  mass  of  cases  exerts  an  assimilative  influence 
upon  the  smaller.  Or,  we  may  say,  it  is  a  case  of  men- 
tal economy:  an  avoidance  of  the  effort  of  memory  in- 
volved in  remembering  exceptions  and  observing  them 
accurately  in  practice.  The  formal  distinction  of  plu- 
ral from  singular  was  one  which  our  language  was 
never  minded  to  give  up.  Of  all  the  plural  signs,  the 
one  which  had  the  most  distinctive  character  was  s. 
The  attention  of  the  language-users  became  centred 
upon  this  as  an  affix  by  which  the  plural  modification 


EXTENSION   OP  PREVAILING   ANALOGIES.        ?5 

of  sense  was  made,  and  they  proceeded  to  apply  it  in 
words  where  it  had  not  before  been  used;  and  the 
movement,  once  started,  gathered  force  in  its  progress, 
until  it  swept  in  nearly  all  the  nouns  of  the  language. 
So  with  the  verb.  By  the  numerical  predominance  of\ 
forms  like  loved  from  love,  the  addition  of  a  d  got  itself 
more  conspicuously  associated  with  the  designation  of 
past  time;  and  men  began  to  overlook  the  cases  which 
by  right  of  former  usage  ought  to  be  made  exceptions. 
Considerable  numbers  of  verbs,  in  the  middle  age  of 
our  tongue,  thus  changed,  like  fare,  their  old  mode  of 
conjugation  for  a  new.  But  the  tendency  is  ever  at 
work,  and  on  a  small  scale  as  well  as  a  large;  and,  of 
course,  especially  among  those  whose  acquisition  of  their 
language  has  not  been  made  complete  and  accurate. 
Children,  above  all  others,  are  all  the  time  blundering 
in  this  direction — saying  gooder  and  badder,  mans  and 
foots,  goed  and  corned,  even  brang  and  thunk — and 
items  of  such  products  creep  not  seldom  into  culti- 
vated speech.  Its  was  made  in  this  way,  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries;  we  have  gained  thus 
the  double  comparatives  lesser  and  worser;  many  are 
led  to  say  plead  (like  read)  instead  of  pleaded,  and 
even  to  fabricate  such  unsupported  anomalies  as  proven 
for  proved.  And  the  principle  is  often  appealed  to  in 
explaining  the  processes  of  earlier  language-making. 
The  force  of  analogy  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  most  potent 
in  all  language-history';  as  it  makes  whole  classes  of 
forms,  so  it  has  power  to  change  their  limits. 


J 


CHAPTEK   V. 

GROWTH  OF  LANGUAGE  :  CHANGE  IN  THE  INNER  CONTENT 
OF  WORDS. 

Wide  reach  and  variety  of  this  change ;  underlying  principles : 
looseness  of  tie  between  word  and  meaning ;  principle  of 
economy  ;  class-names  and  proper  names.  Illustrations :  the 
planets  and  their  kin.  Restriction  of  general  terras  to  specific 
use  ;  extension  of  specific  terms  to  wider  use.  Figurative  ex- 
tension ;  illustrations,  head,  etc. ;  forgetfulness  of  derivation. 
Growth  of  intellectual  vocabulary  from  physical  terms ;  of 
means  of  formal  expression  from  material  terms ;  auxiliaries, 
formal  parts  of  speech ;  phrases. 

We  come  next  to  consider  the  other  grand  depart- 
ment of  change  in  the  existing  material  of  language — 
namely,  that  of  the  inner  content  or  meaning  of  words. 
This  is  just  as  vast  a  subject  as  the  preceding;  and,  if 
possible,  even  more  irreducible  in  its  immensity  and  in- 
finite variety  to  the  dimensions  of  a  chapter.  The  pro- 
cesses of  phonetic  change  have  been  worked  out  with 
great  industry  by  numerous  students  of  language  and 
brought  into  order  and  system,  and  the  comparatively 
restricted  and  sensible  movements  of  the  organs  of 
speech  investigated  in  order  to  form  a  concrete  basis  for 
their  explanation;  but  no  one  has  ever  attempted  to 
classify  the  processes  of  significant  change,  and  the 
movements  of  the  human  mind  under  the  variety  of 
circumstances   defy   cataloguing.      Yet    we    may    hope 

7e 


TIE   BETWEEN  FORM  AND  CONTENT.  77 

within  reasonable  space  to  lay  out  at  least  the  founda- 
tions of  the  subject,  and  to  trace  some  of  the  chief 
directions  of  movement. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  the  separate 
possibility  of  external  and  internal  change  rests  upon 
the  nature  of  the  tie,  as  a  merely  extraneous  and  unes- 
sential one,  which  connects  the  meaning  of  a  word  with 
its  form.  Were  the  case  otherwise,  the  two  kinds  of 
change  would  be  mutually  dependent  and  inseparable; 
as  it  is,  each  runs  its  own  course  and  is  determined  by 
its  own  causes;  even  though  the  history  of  the  two 
may  often  touch,  or  go  on  for  a  time  in  close  connec- 
tion. We  also  saw  that  words  were  assigned  to  their 
specific  uses  (so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  trace  their  his- 
tory) each  at  some  definite  time  in  the  past,  and  for 
reasons  which  were  satisfactory  to  the  nomenclators, 
though  they  did  not  make  the  name  either  a  definition 
or  a  description  of  the  conception;  and  that  the  name, 
once  given,  formed  a  new  and  closer  tie  with  the  thing 
named  than  with  its  own  etymological  ancestor.  We 
took  as  illustration  of  this  the  word  bishop,  originally 
simply  '  overseer ; '  claiming  that  it  was  only  a  speci- 
men of  the  way  things  regularly  go  on  in  language.  It 
is  just  so,  for  example,  with  priest,  formerly  irpea- 
fivrepos,  presbyter,  elder,  literally  '  older  person ; '  so 
with  volume,  though  no  longer  '  rolled,'  as  when  the 
name  was  given;  with  booh,  though  not  now  a  block  of 
'  beech  '-wood ;  with  paper,  now  made  of  other  mate- 
rial than  papyrus;  with  gazette,  which  has  ceased  to  be 
sold  for  a  Venetian  'penny;'  with  bank,  which  has  in- 
finitely outgrown  the  simple  '  bench '  of  the  money- 
changer in  the  market-place,  while  the  bankrupt  has 
vastly  worse  trials  to  endure  than  having  his  '  bench 
broken;'  with  candidate,  though  one  in  such  a  posi- 


8       CHANGE  OF  INNER  CONTENT  OP  WORDS. 


tion  is  no  longer  expected  to  be  '  dressed  in  white ; ' 
with  copper  and  muslin,  which  come  now  from  other 
quarters  than  Cyprus  and  Mosul;  with  lunatic,  even  if 
we  discredit  the  moon's  influence  on  the  disorder;  with 
Indian,  though  the  error  of  the  Spanish  navigators, 
who  thought  they  had  discovered  '  the  Indies '  in 
America,  was  detected  a  good  while  ago — and  so  on  in- 
definitely. 

We  may  see  in  all  this  something  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple of  ease  or  economy  which  we  found  to  underlie 
the  changes  of  form.  Were  it  altogether  as  easy,  when 
the  shape  of  one's  conception  alters  a  little,  or  more 
than  a  little,  to  fling  away  its  old  name  and  make  a  new 
one;  were  it  as  easy,  when  a  new  conception  presents 
itself,  to  give  it  an  appellation  before  unheard-of,  as  to 
stretch  a  familiar  term  a  little  to  cover  it,  then  might 
there  perhaps  be  no  such  thing  as  significant  change  in 
human  speech;  as  it  is,  the  old  material  of  language  is 
constantly  suffering  extension  and  transferral  to  new 
uses,  obstructed  by  no  too  intrusive  sense  of  original 
meaning.  Again,  in  virtue  of  the  same  principle,  our 
words  are,  almost  universally,  class-names.  There  is, 
if  narrowly  enough  regarded,  a  degree  of  individuality 
about  every  being,  thing,  act,  quality,  which  would  jus- 
tify it  in  laying  claim  to  a  separate  appellation;  but 
language  would  be  utterly  unmanageable  if  it  were 
made  up  of  such  appellations;  and,  in  practice,  having 
named  an  individual  thing,  we  apply  the  same  name  to 
whatever  other  things  are  enough  like  it  to  form  a  class 
with  it.  And  thus,  as  we  noted  in  the  second  chapter, 
the  acquisition  of  language  is  the  adoption  of  certain 
classifications;  herein  consists  a  large  share  of  its  value 
as  a  means  of  training.  The  classes,  to  be  sure,  are  of 
very   different   extent :   there  are   even   some — as   sun, 


PROPER  NAMES.  79 

moon,  God,  world — which  have  a  natural  restriction  to  a 
single  member.  Then,  again,  there  are  classes  of  which 
the  individuals  in  their  separateness  rise  to  such  impor- 
tance for  us  that  we  give  each  in  addition  a  name  be- 
longing to  it  as  an  individual  only,  or  a  "  proper  name," 
as  we  call  it :  such  are  the  persons  of  our  community, 
our  pet  animals,  streets,  towns,  and  other  localities,  the 
planets,  months,  week-days,  and  the  like.  In  this  class- 
use  is  an  additional  facilitation  of  significant  change; 
for  every  class  is  liable  to  revision,  in  consequence  of 
increased  knowledge,  keener  insight,  and  consequent 
change  of  criteria. 

We  shall  best  establish  these  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, and  win  suggestion  of  a  classification  for  the 
modes  of  change,  by  glancing  over  a  series  of  illustra- 
tions. 

In  the  olden  time,  certain  heavenly  bodies  which,  as 
they  circled  daily  about  the  earth  from  east  to  west, 
had  also  a  slower  and  more  irregular  movement  in  the 
opposite  direction  among  their  fellows,  were  by  a  little 
community  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  called  plane- 
Us,  because  the  word  in  their  language  meant  '  wan- 
derer.' From  their  use,  we  imported  it  into  our  own 
tongue  in  the  form  planet,  mutilated  in  shape  and  hav- 
ing no  etymological  connection  with  any  other  of  our 
words.  The  class  included  the  sun  and  moon  not  one 
whit  less  than  Jupiter  and  Mars;  it  did  not  include  the 
earth.  But  within  two  or  three  centuries  past,  we  have 
acquired  new  knowledge  which  has  led  us  to  alter  this 
classification,  and  give  a  new  value  to  its  nomenclature. 
We  see  now  that,  in  a  truer  sense,  the  sun  is  not  a 
planet,  but  that  the  earth  is  one;  and  planet  has  been 
changed  to  mean,  not  a  '  wandering  star '  as  viewed 
from  earth,  but  a  body  that  moves  about  a  central  sun. 


80       CHANGE  OP  INNER  CONTENT  OP  WORDS. 

The  moon  is  no  longer  precisely  a  planet,  but  a  second- 
ary planet,  a  satellite.  Having  thus  altered  the  concep- 
tion designated  by  moon,  we  are  ready,  when  the  tele- 
scope discloses  to  us  like  satellites  of  other  planets,  to 
convert  this  unique  appellation  into  a  class-name,  call- 
ing them  all  alike  moons.  So  also  with  sun:  having 
found  that  the  sun  is  essentially  akin  with  the  fixed 
stars  rather  than  with  the  planets,  we  put  him  into  the 
linguistic  class  of  fixed  stars,  or  we  call  the  fixed  stars 
suns. 

The  class  of  planets  is  one  of  those  already  referred 
to,  of  which  each  separate  member  calls  for  an  indi- 
vidual designation,  or  "  proper  name."  Apart  from 
the  sun  and  moon,  however,  they  did  not  so  impress 
the  popular  mind  as  to  receive  popular  titles,  and  it  fell 
to  the  learned,  the  astronomo-astrologers,  to  christen 
them.  These,  though  they  did  their  work  reflectively, 
were  not  altogether  arbitrary  in  their  selection;  they 
took  the  names  of  gods,  since  Sun  and  Moon  were  al- 
ready names  of  gods  as  well  as  of  luminaries;  and  they 
distributed  the  names — Jupiter,  Saturn,  Mercury,  Mars, 
Venus — under  the  guidance  of  motives  which  we  can 
at  least  in  part  recognize:  Mercury,  for  example,  the 
swift  messenger  of  the  divinities,  had  the  most  rapidly 
moving  and  changeful  of  the  class  called  after  him. 
Then,  by  a  like  transfer,  the  alchemists  gave  the  god- 
and  planet-name  to  the  most  mobile  of  the  metals. 
And  now,  though  the  god  Mercury  is  only  a  memory 
of  a  state  of  things  long  gone  by,  Mercury  and  mer- 
cury are  still  words  of  familiar  use  in  our  vocabulary ; 
we  even  shut  up  mercury  in  a  tube  and  bid  him,  as 
Jupiter  used  to  do,  go  up  and  down,  to  tell  us  what  the 
weather  is.  Again,  the  Frenchman  calls  the  middle  day 
of  his  week  'Mercury's  day'  (Mcrcredi),  though  with- 


r 


U 


PLANETS  AND  THEIR  CONNECTIONS;    ...    \\ 

out  being  well  aware  of  it,  and  yet  less  cornpsekerfaing 
why :  it  is  because,  in  the  distribution  by  the  astrologers 
of  the  hours  through  the  whole  week  to  the  planets  in 
their  order,  the  first  hour  of  that  day  fell  to  the  re- 
gency of  Mercury.  Then,  once  upon  a  time,  these 
Latin  day-names  were  mechanically  turned  into  German 
shape  for  the  use  of  Germanic  peoples,  and  Mercurii 
dies  became  Woden's  day,  our  Wednesday:  and  so  with 
the  rest.  Certainly  a  most  curious  history  of  transfer, 
which  brings  out  a  series  of  reflective  acts  of  nomen- 
clature made  by  learned  heathen — and  not  without 
Christian  aid,  since  the  planetary  day-names  would  have 
remained  to  Europe,  as  to  India,  a  mere  astrologers' 
fancy,  but  for  Christianity  and  its  inheritance  of  the 
Jewish  seven-day  period  as  a  leading  measure  of  time — 
a  little  group  of  some  of  the  commonest  and  most  truly 
popular  terms  in  our  language !  The  same  words,  more- 
over, have  been  made  to  answer  other  purposes :  the 
astrologers  held  that  a  person  born  under  the  special  in- 
fluence of  a  certain  planet  was  characterized  by  a  cor- 
responding disposition;  and  those  dispositions  we  still 
call  mercurial,  jovial,  saturnine;  martial  and  venereal, 
on  the  other  hand,  come  from  the  office  of  the  divinities 
themselves. 

Again,  we  use  sun  and  moon  to  designate  '  day '  and 
'  month,'  saying  "  so  many  suns,"  "  so  many  moons." 
Here  is  simply  a  striking  ellipsis :  we  mean  really  "  so 
many  [revolutions  of]  sun  or  moon  " — counting,  how- 
ever, the  revolutions  on  different  principles;  else  a  sun 
would  be  a  '  year.'  Then  month,  which  is  only  a  de- 
rivative form  of  moon,  has  been  transferred  to  desig- 
nate an  arbitrary  period  of  twenty-eight  to  thirty-one 
days,  having  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  moon's 
movement.    Further,  a  moon  (or  lune)  is  in  fortification 


82       CHANGE  OP  INNER  CONTENT  OP  WORDS. 

a  crescent-shaped  outwork :  an  analogy,  this  time,  of 
shape  merely.  Nor  is  it  meant  to  imply  that  the  moon 
is  always,  or  usually,  of  this  shape;  but  only  that  she 
is  the  most  conspicuous  object  in  nature  that  ever  as- 
sumes the  shape.  If  we  want  to  be  more  precise,  we 
say  "  crescewi-shaped."  But  here  also  is  an  ellipsis,  and 
of  the  most  striking  kind;  for  crescent  literally  means 
simply  '  growing,'  and  does  not  contain  even  a  hint  of 
the  moon.  Moreover,  the  moon  does  not  have  this 
shape  all  the  time  she  is  "  growing,"  but  only  at  a  par- 
ticular period,  and  she  has  it  just  as  much  when  decreas- 
ing as  when  increasing;  so  that  crescent  really  means 
'  [resembling  the  moon  at  a  certain  stage  of  her]  grow- 
ing [as  also  of  her  waning].'  It  is  good  English,  too, 
to  talk  of  a  moow-struck  idler  as  mooning  around,  al- 
though we  should  indignantly  deny  the  belief  in  lunar 
influences  which  suggested  the  expressions. 

This  may  seem  like  an  aimless  roaming  through  one 
department  of  our  vocabulary;  but  its  heterogeneous- 
ness  is  due  to  the  character  of  the  facts  with  which  we 
have  to  deal,  and  is  an  important  part  of  the  value  of 
the  illustration.  It  is  simply  impossible  to  exhaust  the 
variety  of  significant  change  in  linguistic  growth:  there 
is  no  conceivable  direction  in  which  a  transfer  may  not 
be  made;  there  is  no  assignable  distance  to  which  a 
word  may  not  wander  from  its  primitive  meaning. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  concise  and  exhaustive  clas- 
sification of  such  variety;  all  we  can  do  is  to  point  out 
some  of  the  main  divisions,  the  leading  directions  in 
which  the  movement  goes  on,  neglecting  the  unclassi- 
fied and  perhaps  in  part  unclassifiable  residue. 

One  of  the  largest  classes  (already  more  than  once 
hinted  at)  has  a  striking  example  in  crescent.  Crescent, 
'  growing,'  is  a  word  of  the  widest  application ;  a  young 


NAMES  NOT  DEFINITIONS.  83 

child  or  tree,  an  aggregating  crystal,  a  new-built  fire,  a 
beginning  reputation,  an  evolving  cosmos,  are  really 
as  much  crescent  as  a  young  (so,  by  a  figure,  we  call  it) 
moon.  To  seize  upon  the  word  as  specific  title  of  the 
growing  moon,  then,  is  to  commit  a  very  bold  and  ar- 
bitrary act  of  restriction.  But  the  act  is  also  open  to 
objection  on  another  side.  It  takes  account  of  only  a 
single,  and  that  a  very  trivial,  characteristic  of  an  object 
which  has  many  others.  All  we  can  say  in  reply  is  that 
nomenclature  is  a  free  and  easy  process,  and  that  such 
objections  count  for  nothing  as  against  the  demands  of 
convenient  expression.  The  case  was  the  same  with 
bishop,  '  overseer/  as  we  saw  above;  it  was  the  same 
with  green,,  '  growing ; '  it  was  the  same  with  planet, 
1  wanderer.'  It  is  believed  by  the  etymologists  that 
moon  itself  comes  in  a  similar  way  from  a  root  mean- 
ing '  measure ; '  our  satellite  having  been  thus  desig- 
nated, in  remote  ages,  because  of  her  office  in  measur- 
ing the  longer  intervals  of  time :  "  so  many  moons." 
Certainly,  her  Latin  name  luna  is  for  lucna,  and  re- 
lated with  lux,  and  so  describes  her  simply  as  a  '  shiner.' 
And  sun  goes  back,  it  is  believed,  to  an  equivalent 
source.  Comparative  philology  claims  to  have  shown 
(as  will  be  noticed  hereafter)  that  the  earliest  appella- 
tions of  specific  things  were  in  general  won  in  precisely 
this  way,  the  germs  of  speech  being  expressions  for 
acts  and  qualities.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  certain 
that,  through  the  whole  history  of  language  since,  the 
method  has  been  in  constant  use:  epithets  of  things, 
representing  some  one  of  their  various  attributes,  be- 
come the  names  of  things,  through  every  department 
of  nomenclature.  Our  etymologies  are  apt  to  bring  us 
back  finally  to  some  so  general,  comprehensive,  colorless 
idea,  that  we  almost  wonder  how  it  can  have  given 


84       CHANGE  OP  INNER  CONTENT  OP  WORDS. 

birth  to  such  strongly-marked  progeny.  All  the  varied 
and  definite  meanings  of  post  (to  take  a  further  example 
or  two)  go  back  to  the  sense  of  'put,  placed.'  The 
idea  of  rolling  is  specialized  into  the  muster  roll  and 
the  breakfast  roll,  the  roll  of  the  drum  and  rolls  of 
fat;  by  a  longer  route,  it  comes  to  us  in  the  form  of 
the  actor's  role;  and  a  slight  addition  makes  of  it  con- 
trol, of  which  the  connection  with  its  original  escapes 
all  but  skilled  and  curious  eyes. 

Another  leading  principle,  of  the  first  order  of  im- 
portance, is  somewhat  contrary  in  its  effects  to  that 
which  we  have  been  considering:  it  is  the  principle  of 
extension,  as  opposed  to  restriction,  of  the  sphere  of 
meaning  of  a  term.  A  name  won  by  specialization  be- 
gins an  independent  career,  which  ends  in  its  gaining 
the  position  of  head  of  a  tribe.  Mr.  Miller,  named  by 
the  specializing  process  from  his  vocation,  becomes  the 
father  of  a  multitude  of  Millers,  so  named  from  their 
relation  to  him,  without  the  least  regard  to  their  voca- 
tions. And  he  may  turn  out  the  founder  of  a  sect,  who 
shall  call  themselves  Millerites  after  him,  and  make  his 
name  as  conspicuous  an  element  in  the  nomenclature  of 
theology  as  is  already  that  of  Arius  or  Nestorius.  The 
butterflies  were  first  named  in  the  species  which  showed 
itself  few^er-colored  as  it  flew:  the  title  is  extended, 
heedless  of  the  differences  of  color,  to  every  other  kin- 
dred species.  Our  recent  examples  showed  us  sun  and 
moon  made  class-names.  Crescent  develops  a  group  of 
new  uses  out  of  the  fortuitous  presence  of  the  figure 
on  the  Mohammedan  standard.  No  one  knows  precise- 
ly why  the  rose  was  so  entitled:  the  botanist  has  made 
it  the  type  of  a  whole  order  of  quite  diverse  plants, 
which  he  terms  rosacea?,  '  rose-like.'  A  great  part  of 
our  acquisitions  of  new  knowledge  go  to  swell  old  estab- 


EXTENSION  OP  APPLICATION.  85 

lished  classes,  expending  themselves,  so  far  as  language 
is  concerned,  in  the  extension  of  existing  class-names. 
To  take  an  example  of  the  most  obvious  kind:  the  dis- 
covery of  every  new  animal  or  plant  or  mineral  stretches 
a  little  not  only  the  scope  of  those  widest  terms,  but 
also  of  a  whole  series  of  subordinate  ones.  And  some- 
times the  change  rises  to  conspicuous  value.  The  zo- 
ologist's conception  of  horse,  for  example,  has  under- 
gone no  slight  modification  by  the  recent  discovery  in 
the  American  West  of  numerous  fossil  species,  of 
greatly  varying  size  and  structure.  Every  exploring 
naturalist,  in  fact,  is  all  the  time  illustrating,  in  an 
openly  reflective  way,  in  his  naming  of  species,  the  two 
principles  which  direct  a  great  part  of  the  world's  less 
conscious  nomenclature.  Having  in  his  hands  a  new 
plant,  he  at  once  proceeds  to  classify  it:  that  is  to  say, 
to  determine  of  what  current  class-names  it  must  swell 
the  content :  he  finds  it,  we  will  suppose,  a  plant,  and  a 
phenogamous,  a  dicotyledonous,  a  rose-like  plant,  and 
finally  a  rubus  or  '  blackberry.'  But  it  has  peculiarities 
which  entitle  it  to  a  specific  designation;  and  this  must 
be  gained  by  the  other  method :  the  nomenclator  selects 
the  quality  which  he  will  describe,  and  christens  it  meg- 
alocarpus,  i  big-fruited,'  gracilis,  '  elegant,'  or  the  like ; 
or  he  gets  a  suggestion  from  the  locality,  the  situation, 
the  circumstances  of  discovery;  or  he  connects  it  with 
some  still  more  extraneous  matter:  so,  for  instance,  he 
compliments  his  friend  Smith  by  naming  it  Smithii. 

The  extension  of  a  name's  application,  however,  in- 
volves a  great  deal  that  is  far  less  plain  and  legitimate 
than  all  this.  Not  only  a  true  accordance  in  generic 
character,  but  relations  of  an  infinitely  looser  kind,  are 
used  to  tie  together  the  classes  that  go  under  one  name. 
We  saw  lately  a  heathen  god,  a  planet,  a  metal,  a  tern- 


86       CHANGE  OF  INNER  CONTENT  OP  WORDS. 

perament,  and  a  day  of  the  week,  all  forced  into  un- 
natural union  under  the  title  mercury.  Since  fruit  is 
apt  to  be  green  when  not  fully  ripe,  green  becomes  a 
synonym  for  '  unripe  '  (and  so  we  can  commit  the  fa- 
miliar linguistic  paradox  that  blackberries  are  red  when 
they  are  green )  ;  and  then,  in  less  elegant  diction,  it  is 
again  shifted  to  signify  '  immature,  not  versed  in  the 
ways  of  the  world.'  Such  transfers  we  are  wont  to  call 
figurative;  they  rest  upon  an  apprehended  analogy, 
but  one  generally  so  distant,  subjective,  fanciful,  that 
we  can  hardly  regard  it  as  sufficient  to  make  a  connect- 
ed class.  Instances  of  this  kind  lie  all  about  us,  in  our 
most  familiar  words;  and  this  department  of  change  is 
of  so  conspicuous  importance  in  language-history  that 
we  must  dwell  upon  it  a  little  longer.  Our  minds  de- 
light in  the  discovery  of  resemblances,  near  and  remote, 
obvious  and  obscure,  and  are  always  ready  to  make 
them  the  foundation  of  an  association  that  involves  the 
addition  of  a  new  use  to  an  old  name.  Thus,  not  only 
an  animal  has  a  head,  but  also  a  pin,  a  cabbage.  A  bed 
has  one,  where  the  head  of  its  occupant  usually  lies — 
and  it  has  a  foot  for  the  same  reason,  besides  the  four 
feet  it  stands  on  by  another  figure,  and  the  six  feet  it 
measures  by  yet  another.  More  remarkable  still,  a  river 
has  a  head:  its  highest  point,  namely,  where  it  heads 
among  the  highlands — and  so  it  has  arms;  or,  by  an- 
other figure,  brandies;  or,  by  another,  feeders;  or,  by 
another,  tributaries;  and  it  has  a  right  and  left  sideb- 
and it  has  a  bed,  in  which,  by  an  unfortunate  mixture 
of  metaphors,  it  runs  instead  of  lying  still;  and  then. 
at  the  farthest  extremity  from  the  head,  we  find,  not  its 
foot,  but  its  mouth.  Further,  an  army,  a  school,  a  sect, 
has  its  head.  A  class  has  its  head  and  its  tail;  and  so 
has  a  coin,  though  in  quite  a  different  way.     A  sermon 


READINESS  TO  FORGET  DERIVATION.  87 

has  its  heads,  as  divided  by  their  different  headings; 
and  we  can  beg  to  be  spared  anything  more  "  on  that 
head."  A  sore  comes  to  a  head;  and  so,  by  one  step 
further  away  from  literalness,  a  conspiracy  or  other  dis- 
order in  the  state,  the  body  politic,  does  the  same.  We 
give  a  horse  his  head,  which  he  had  before  our  dona- 
tion; and  then  we  treat  in  the  same  way  our  passions — 
that  is  to  say,  if  by  their  overmastering  violence  we  lose 
our  heads.    And  so  on,  ad  infinitum. 

These  side  or  figurative  uses  of  a  word  do  not  per- 
plex us;  they  do  not  even  strike  us  as  anything  out  of 
the  way;  they  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  sphere  of  ap- 
plication of  the  word.  For  it  is  an  important  item  in 
this  process  of  transfer  that  we  gradually  lose  our  sense 
of  the  figure  implied,  and  come  to  employ  each  sign  as 
if  it  had  always  been  the  simple  and  downright  repre- 
sentative of  its  idea.  Here  we  see  again  the  willing- 
ness, which  has  been  already  pointed  out,  and  which  is 
essential  to  the  prosperous  development  of  a  language, 
to  forget  the  origin  of  a  name  when  once  it  is  won,  to 
let  drop  the  old  associations  and  suggestions  which  be- 
longed to  it  in  virtue  of  its  etymology,  and  invest  it 
with  a  new  set  appertaining  to  its  present  use.  Per- 
haps there  is  in  English  hardly  a  more  striking  example 
of  this  than  our  word  butterfly,  a  name  of  utterly  pro- 
saic and  trivial  origin,  but  which  has  become  truly  po- 
etic and  elegant,  as  we  think  in  connection  with  it  of 
the  beautiful  creatures  it  designates,  and  not  one  in  a 
thousand  has  ever  had  come  into  his  head  the  idea  that 
it  literally  means  '  a  fly  of  butter-color.'  The  relics  of 
forgotten  derivations,  of  faded  metaphors,  are  scattered 
thickly  through  every  part  of  our  vocabulary.  It  is,  to 
our  apprehension,  in  the  nature  of  a  word  to  have  its 
figurative  as  well  as  its  literal  uses  and  applications ;  we 


88       CHANGE  OP  INNER  CONTENT  OF  WORDS. 

inherited  our  vocabulary  in  that  condition;  and,  by  new 
discoveries  of  analogies  and  new  transfers  of  meaning, 
we  are  all  the  time  adding  to  the  confusion — if  it  were 
a  confusion.  Sometimes  the  connection  between  the 
different  senses  is  obvious  on  the  least  reflection;  some- 
times, again,  it  is  so  obscure  that  we  cannot  find  it,  or 
that  we  conceive  it  wrongly;  ordinarily,  we  do  not  con- 
cern ourselves  about  the  matter;  we  use  each  word  as 
we  have  learned  it,  leaving  to  the  lexicographer  to  fol- 
low up  the  ramifications  to  their  source  in  its  primitive 
or  etymological  meaning. 

A  conspicuous  branch  of  the  department  of  figu- 
rative transfer,  and  one  of  indispensable  importance  in 
the  history  of  language,  is  the  application  of  terms  hav- 
ing a  physical,  sensible  meaning,  to  the  designation  of 
intellectual  and  moral  conceptions  and  their  relations. 
It  is  almost  useless  to  attempt  to  illustrate  this ;  the  ex- 
amples would  come  crowding  in  too  numerously  to  be 
dealt  with :  we  will  merely  notice  a  few  of  those  which 
happen  to  be  offered  in  the  preceding  paragraph.  Per- 
plex means  *  braid  together,  interwine.'  Simple  is 
'  without  fold,'  as  distinguished  from  what  is  double,  or 
'  two-fold ; '  in  simplicity  and  duplicity  we  have  a 
moral  contrast  more  distinctly  brought  to  view;  appli- 
cation contains  the  same  root,  and  denotes  an  actual 
physical  '  folding  or  bending  to '  anything,  so  as  to  fit 
it  closely ;  while  imply  intimates  a  '  folding  in.'  Im- 
portant means  '  bringing  in,  importing,  having  con- 
ferred import  or  consequence.'  Apprehension  signifies 
literally  the  ' taking  hold'  of  a  thing.  Relation  is  a 
'  carrying  back,'  as  transfer  is  a  '  carrying  across '  in 
Latin,  and  metaphor  nearly  the  same  thing  in  Greek. 
To  invest  is  to  '  put  into  clothes; '  to  develop  is  to  '  un- 
wrap.'    Trivial  is  what  is  found  '  at  the  street-cross- 


FIGURATIVE  WORDS.  89 

ings ; '  anything  is  obvious  which  meets  us  '  in  the  way/ 
which  occurs  to,  or  '  runs  against '  us.  Derivation  in- 
volves the  curiously  special  idea  of  drawing  off  streams 
of  water  from  a  river,  for  irrigation  or  the  like.  To  sug- 
gest is  to  '  carry  under/  or  supply,  as  it  were,  from  be- 
neath, not  conspicuously — and  so  on.  All  these  are  from 
the  Latin  part  of  our  language,  which  furnishes  exam- 
ples in  the  greatest  abundance,  because  our  philosophical 
and  scientific  vocabulary  comes  mainly  from  that  source ; 
but  there  is  plenty  like  it  in  the  Saxon  part  also.  Wrong 
is  '  wrung '  or  '  twisted/  as  its  opposite  right  is 
'  straight ; '  and  downright  involves  the  same  figure  as 
upright,  as  having  nothing  oblique  or  indirect  about  it. 
A  striking  example  needs  no  comment.  To  forget  is  the 
opposite  of  to  get,  but  signifies  only  a  mental  loss.  We 
see  things  that  never  come  before  our  bodily  eyes.  And 
point  out,  let  drop,  follow  up,  lay  down,  come  into  the 
head,  out  of  the  way,  are  instances  of  phrases  that  show 
plainly  a  similar  shift  of  application.  In  fact,  our 
whole  mental  and  moral  vocabulary  has  been  gained 
precisely  in  this  way;  the  etymologist  feels  that  he  has 
not  finished  tracing  out  the  history  of  any  one  of  its 
terms  until  he  has  hunted  it  back  to  the  physical  con- 
ception in  which,  by  the  general  analogies  of  language, 
it  must  have  had  its  origin. 

Thus,  as  the  general  movement  of  human  knowl- 
edge is  from  the  recognition  of  sensible  objects  to  an 
ever  finer  analysis  of  their  qualities  and  determination 
of  their  relations,  and  to  the  apprehension  of  more  rec- 
ondite existences,  objects  of  thought,  so,  as  the  accom- 
paniment and  necessary  consequence,  there  is  a  move- 
ment in  the  whole  vocabulary  of  language  from  the 
designation  of  what  is  coarser,  grosser,  more  material, 
to  the  designation  of  what  is  finer,  more  abstract  and 
1 


90       CHANGE  OF  INNER  CONTENT  OF  WORDS. 

conceptional,  more  formal.  Considered  with  reference 
to  the  ends  rather  than  the  methods  of  expression,  there 
is  no  grander  phenomenon  than  this  in  all  language-his- 
tory. But  the  evolution  of  the  intellectual  vocabulary 
is  only  one  division  of  the  movement;  there  is  another 
to  which  a  few  moments'  attention  must  be  given. 

We  have  a  verb,  be,  bearing  the  purely  formal  gram- 
matical office  of  connecting  a  subject  with  its  predicate 
Such  a  connective  is  wanting  in  many  languages,  which 
are  obliged  simply  to  set  the  two  elements  side  by  side, 
leaving  their  relation  to  be  supplied  by  the  mind.  Its 
conjugation  is  made  up  of  various  discordant  parts; 
which,  however,  agree  in  the  quality  of  derivation  from 
roots  having  a  distinct  physical  meaning:  am,  is,  are, 
come  from  as,  which  signified  either  '  breathe  '  or  '  sit ; ' 
was,  were,  from  vas,  'abide;'  be,  been,  from  bhu, 
'  grow.'  The  French  has  filled  up  its  scheme  of  the 
same  verb  from  the  Latin  stare,  '  stand.'  The  develop- 
ment of  meaning  here  is  analogous  with  what  we  have 
been  considering,  a  case  of  transfer  and  extension — ex- 
tension so  wide  that  it  has  effaced  all  that  was  distinc- 
tive in  the  words;  we  may  call  it  an  attenuation,  a  fad- 
ing-out, a  complete  formalizing,  of  what  was  before 
solid,  positive,  substantial. 

The  same  general  connective  be,  when  used  with  the 
past  participle  of  a  transitive  verb,  becomes  an  "  auxil- 
iary," making  a  whole  conjugation  of  what  we  call 
"passive"  forms — "I  am  loved,"  etc.:  with  a  present 
participle,  it  makes  a  like  scheme  of  "continuous"  or 
"imperfect"'  tenses — "I  am  loving."  etc.  It  thus  en- 
ters just  as  fully  into  the  service  of  formal  grammatical 
expression  as  the  formative  endings  of  languages  of 
other  habit  than  ours.  We  have  many  other  words  of 
which  the  history  and  present  application  are  nearly 


VERBAL  AUXILIARIES.  91 

the  same.  There  is  do,  which,  from  the  original  physi- 
cal notion  of  '  set,  place,'  has  been  extended  and  for- 
malized into  expressing  efficient  action  of  every  kind — 
do  good,  do  one's  best,  do  to  death,  and  so  on;  and 
which  also  does  service  as  verbal  auxiliary — I  do  love, 
did  I  love?  etc.  Again,  the  Latin  root  cap  {caper e) 
means  '  seize,  grasp.'  Its  Germanic  correspondent  is 
hab,  in  Gothic  haban,  German  haben,  our  have.  But 
here  the  more  physical  sense  of  '  grasp '  has  almost  dis- 
appeared (we  have  it  in  Germ,  handhabe,  our  haft,  the 
part  of  an  instrument  that  is  '  grasped '  by  the  hand)  ; 
in  its  place  has  come  the  more  conceptional  one  of  '  pos- 
sess.' So  also  with  the  Latin  habere,  the  relation  of 
which  to  caper e  on  the  one  hand  and  haben  on  the  other 
is  a  puzzle  to  the  etymologists.  Finally,  this  too  has 
been  turned  to  use  in  verbal  expression,  and  by  a  trans- 
fer which,  though  illustrated  in  the  history  of  many 
languages,  must  be  called  a  very  remarkable  one.  Pres- 
ent possession  often  implies  past  action :  habeo  cultellum 
inventum,  habeo  virgulam  fissam,  habeo  digitum  vul- 
neratum,  'I  possess  my  knife  found  (recovered  after 
loss),  I  possess  a  twig  that  is  split,  I  have  a  wounded 
finger : '  here  the  several  conditions  have  been  preceded 
by  the  several  acts,  of  finding,  splitting,  wounding.  On 
this  absurdly  narrow  basis  is  built  up  the  whole  im- 
mense structure  of  the  "  perfect  "-tense  expression : 
the  phrase  shifts  its  centre  of  gravity  from  the  ex- 
pressed condition  to  the  implied  antecedent  act;  and  / 
have  found  the  knife,  ich  habe  das  Messer  gefunden, 
j'ai  trouve  le  couteau,  become  indicators  of  a  peculiar 
variety  of  past  action  contemplated  as  completed :  fur- 
ther examples  are  the  Sanskrit  kritavdn,  '  [I  am]  pos- 
sessing [something]  done,'  i.  e.  'I  have  done;'  and 
Turkish  dogd-um,  '  striking  mine,'  i.  e.  '  I  have  struck.' 


92       CHANGE  OF  INNER  CONTENT  OF  WORDS. 

The  next  step  is  to  forget  how  have  came  by  its  "  per- 
fect "  meaning,  and  to  use  it  with  all  sorts  of  verbs, 
where  an  etymological  analysis  would  make  nonsense : 
as  in  I  have  lost  the  knife,  I  have  lived  (German  and 
French  the  same)  ;  and,  in  English,  even  /  have  come, 
where  the  other  languages  still  say,  more  properly,  '  I 
am  come.' 

But  the  same  verb  has  other  auxiliary  work  to  do. 
The  phrases  hdbeo  virgulam  ad  findendum,  j'ai  une 
verge  a  fendrc,  ich  habe  eiu  Aestchcn  zu  spalten,  I  have 
a  twig  to  split  (for  splitting),  as  plainly  imply  a  con- 
templated future  action.  They  become  formal  verbal 
expressions  when,  by  a  like  shift  of  emphasis  and  ap- 
prehended connection  with  that  noted  above,  the  con- 
struction is  changed  to  /  have  to  cut  a  twig,  and  the 
noun  is  viewed  no  longer  as  object  of  the  have,  but 
rather  of  the  other  verb,  the  infinitive;  and  yet  more 
completely  when  (again  as  above)  the  construction  is  so 
extended  that  we  say  /  have  to  strike,  I  have  to  go,  I 
have  to  be  careful.  We  thus  have  a  phrase  denoting 
obligation  to  future  action,  developed  out  of  the  same 
expression  for  '  seizing '  which  is  also  used  to  denote 
past  action.  The  French  has  gone  still  further.  Not 
emphasizing,  as  we  do,  the  idea  of  obligation,  it  uses 
the  same  phrase  as  simple  expression  of  futurity;  and 
more,  it  combines  the  auxiliary  into  one  word  with  the 
other  verb — je  fendrai  (for  je  feud  re  ai,  i.  e.  j'ai  a 
fendre) ;  in  which  no  French  speaker,  unless  philologi- 
cally  educated,  ever  recognizes  the  elements  of  the  com- 
bination. 

Once  more,  the  English  is  peculiar  in  expressing  a 
causative  sense  by  the  same  agency:  /  had  my  horse 
shod,  I  will  have  the  book  bound,  point  to  a  different 
aspect    of   the   action,    setting    it    forth    as    something 


VERBAL  AUXILIARIES.  93 

brought  about,  though  not  executed,  by  the  actor.  It  is 
merely  a  turning-up  to  view  of  another  of  the  many 
implications  involved  in  the  state  of  possession. 

All  our  verbal  auxiliaries  come  after  a  like  fashion. 
Behind  our  shall  and  will,  as  signs  of  future  action,  lies 
a  history  of  transfers  and  extensions.  One  step  back, 
I  shall  means  '  I  owe,  am  under  obligation ; '  /  will,  '  I 
intend,  purpose.'  Both  are  examples  of  that  important 
little  class  of  Germanic  verbs  called  "  preterito-presen- 
tial,"  because  (by  a  change  just  the  opposite  of  that 
which  we  noticed  above)  they  have  won  their  present 
meaning  through  a  "  perfect  "  one.  And  shall,  it  is 
claimed,  goes  back  finally  to  '  I  have  offended,'  and 
hence  'am  under  penalty;'  will,  to  'I  have  selected' 
(yet  more  primitively,  *  have  enclosed  or  surrounded  '). 
The  Greek  KeKrrj/xaL,  '  I  have  acquired  '  (colloquial  Eng- 
lish, /  have  got),  for  '  I  possess,'  is  a  parallel  here;  in- 
deed, both  Greek  and  Sanskrit  have  one  of  the  very 
verbs  that  compose  the  Germanic  class :  Skt.  veda,  Gr. 
ol8a,  Goth,  wait,  Germ,  ivciss,  '  I  wot  or  know : '  liter- 
ally, '  I  have  seen.'  And  the  Latin  furnishes  a  very 
notable  parallel  to  the  shifts  of  construction  we  have 
been  instancing,  in  its  use  of  the  accusative  as  "  sub- 
ject "  of  an  infinitive :  it  all  grew  out  of  an  inorganic 
extension  of  such  constructions  as  dicit  te  errare,  '  he 
declares  you  to  err.'  Toward  this  we  have  in  English 
at  least  a  near  approach  in  phrases  like  "'for  him  to  err 
is  a  rare  thing,"  where  we  have  almost  forgotten  that 
for  logically  connects  him  with  rare :  "  to  en  is  a  thing 
rare  for  him."  Another  kindred  case  is  the  infinitive 
in  passive  sense  in  German  causative  phrases :  er  liess 
sich  nicht  halten,  'he  did  not  let  himself  be  held; '  lit- 
erally, '  did  not  let  [any  one]  hold  him.' 

This  kind  of  change  is  by  no  means  limited  to  ver- 


94       CHANGE  OP  INNER  CONTENT  OF  WORDS. 

bal  constructions,  as  a  few  examples  from  other  parts  of 
the  grammar  will  show.  In  Anglo-Saxon  there  was  no 
such  word  as  of,  as  distinguished  from  off;  their  sepa- 
ration, in  form  and  meaning,  is  a  piece  of  very  recent 
word-history.  Off  is  the  earlier  sense,  as  the  more  ma- 
terial :  though  itself,  as  preposition,  a  sign  of  relation, 
and  therefore  formal  as  compared  with  our  general  vo- 
cabulary. But  in  of  we  have  all  limited  and  definable 
relation  extinguished;  the  word  is  a  token  of  the  most 
indefinite  appurtenance,  the  absolute  equivalent  of  a 
genitive  case-ending,  a  link  between  a  noun  and  its 
modifying  noun,  sign  of  the  adjective  relation  of  one 
noun  to  another.  The  French  de  has  a  history  not  un- 
like this.  Almost  as  striking  an  example  is  our  for, 
originally  the  same  word  with  fore,  '  before,  in  front 
of ; '  in  German  the  word  has  taken  on  a  threefold  form 
for  its  various  offices,  in  vor,  fur,  and  the  inseparable 
prefix  ver — each  of  more  attenuated  quality  than  its 
predecessor.  To  retains  in  general  its  ancient  office  as 
designating  approach ;  but  as  "  sign  of  the  infinitive  " 
it  is  as  purely  formal  as  of  itself;  in  to  have,  for  exam- 
ple, it  is  nothing  more  than  a  kind  of  modern  substitute 
for  the  old  ending  an  of  haban:  we  have  absolutely  lost 
from  memory  its  real  value,  as  that  of  a  preposition 
governing  a  verbal  noun. 

But  there  is  another  shift  of  construction  lying  back 
of  the  whole  class  of  prepositions.  The  oldest  of  them 
were  originally — as  many  of  them  still  continue  also 
to  be — adverbs,  modifiers  of  verbal  action,  only  aiding 
to  determine  the  noun-case  which  that  action  should 
take  as  its  further  adjunct.  Here  is  a  whole  part  of 
speech,  of  an  especially  formal  character,  developed  from 
those  of  more  material  aspect  and  office.  The  conjunc- 
tions are  another  case  of  the  same  kind,  though  into 


RELATIVE  PRONOUNS.  95 

the  details  of  their  history  we  have  no  time  here  to  en- 
ter. And  the  articles,  sometimes  ranked  as  a  separate 
part  of  speech,  are  likewise  altered  and  faded  words : 
their  originals,  to  be  sure,  were  formal  enough;  but 
they  are  etherealized  formals:  the  definite  article  is 
a  demonstrative,  from  which  the  full  demonstrative 
force  has  been  withdrawn;  the  indefinite  article  comes 
by  a  similar  process  of  attenuation  from  the  numeral 
'  one.' 

The  great  variety  and  prominent  importance  of  this 
department  of  change  of  meaning  tempt  to  protracted 
illustration;  and  no  brief  array  of  examples  can  do  it 
justice :  but  we  must  content  ourselves  with  only  one 
more.  Alongside  the  conjunctions,  the  relative  pro- 
nouns are  by  far  the  most  important  of  the  connectives 
by  which  we  bind  together  separate  assertions,  making 
a  period  out  of  what  would  otherwise  be  a  loose  aggre- 
gation of  phrases.  They  are  pronouns  with  conjunctive 
force;  they  fasten  distinctly  to  their  antecedent  an  as- 
sertion which  would  otherwise  be  connected  with  it 
only  by  implication.  There  are  plenty  of  languages  in 
the  world  which  have  no  such  syntactical  apparatus; 
and  we,  too,  could  make  shift  to  get  on  well  enough 
without  it.  To  say  "my  friend  had  had  a  fever;  he 
was  not  quite  recovered;  he  was  looking  pale  and  ill," 
is  fully  sufficient  to  enable  the  hearer  to  combine  the 
circumstances  in  their  proper  relations.  We  only  put 
into  expression  the  necessarily  implied  mental  act  when 
we  say  "  my  friend,  who  had  had  a  fever  from  which 
he  was  not  quite  recovered,  was  looking  ill ;  "  and  we 
have  no  small  variety  of  other  ways  of  putting  the 
same  thing :  "  he  was  looking  ill  because  (or,  for)  he 
had  had "  etc. ;  or,  "  my  friend,  being  not  yet  recov- 
ered from  a  recent  fever,  was  looking  ill ;  "  and  so  on. 


96       CHANGE  OF  INNER  CONTENT  OP  WORDS. 

The  various  modes  of  statement  are  devices  for  present- 
ing to  more  special  attention  one  and  another  aspect  of 
a  fact  and  its  causes;  their  possibility  is  an  added  deco- 
ration rather  than  a  substantial  resource  of  speech ;  they 
serve  a  rhetorical  purpose.  But  the  relatives,  which, 
though  not  indispensable,  are  an  agency  we  could  hard- 
ly afford  to  miss,  are  only  a  comparatively  recent  accpii- 
sition.  They  are  demonstratives  and  interrogatives  put 
to  a  new  use;  employed  first  with  pregnant  allusion  to 
an  antecedent,  then  gaining  such  allusion  as  an  essential 
element.  The  construction  was  in  a  forming  and  doubt- 
ful state  in  our  earliest  English,  and  who  and  which 
won  their  relative  force  only  considerably  later. 

It  is  by  no  means  only  in  verbal  phrases  and  other 
examples  of  the  reduction  of  terms  of  independent 
meaning  to  formal  value  that  language  exhibits  its  char- 
acteristic tendency  toward  oblivion  of  original  meaning 
and  disregard  of  etymological  concinnity.  Most  tongues 
are  full  of  idiomatic  phrases,  which,  when  we  attempt 
to  analyze  them,  are  often  obscure  or  meaningless  or 
absurd,  and  which  nevertheless  constitute  no  small  part 
of  the  strength  and  charm  of  expression.  Take  place 
is  a  fair  English  example;  the  same  expression  in  Ger- 
man, Platz  nehmen,  means  '  sit  down,'  while  to  repre- 
sent our  meaning  the  German  says  rather  Statt  finden, 
'find  stead.'  In  French  we  may  instance  avoir  beau, 
literally  '  to  have  beautiful,'  used  to  intimate  the  use- 
lessness  of  an  action :  il  a  beau  s'excuser,  '  he  tries  in 
vain  to  excuse  himself;'  or  en  vouloir,  literally  'wish 
about  it,'  but  meaning  '  bear  a  grudge.'  And  between 
the  three  equivalent  expressions  there  is,  il  y  a,  liter- 
ally '  it  has  there,'  and  es  cjibt,  '  it  gives,'  it  is  hard  to 
choose  the  one  which  implies  the  most  curious  twist 
of  meaning.     The  very  abundance  and  heterogeneous- 


VARIETY  OP  SIGNIFICANT  CHANGE.  9? 

ness  of  the  material  here  discourage  more  extended  illus- 
tration. 

It  is,  as  has  been  already  said,  impossible  to  exhaust 
the  variety  of  significant  change  in  linguistic  growth. 
Whole  volumes,  full  of  interest  and  instruction,  have 
been  produced  upon  this  subject  alone;  and  if  our  ob- 
ject were  general  interest  and  instruction,  we  should 
not  quit  the  theme  here.  We  should  dwell,  for  in- 
stance, upon  the  curious  fate  which,  while  some  words 
fade  to  the  thinnest  skeleton,  almost  shadow,  of  sub- 
stantial value,  crowds  others  with  pregnancy  and  force 
— like  home,  comfort,  tact  (literally  '  touch  '),  taste,  hu- 
mor ('moisture');  upon  the  contrast  between  words 
which  from  a  low  or  an  indifferent  origin  rise  to  dig- 
nity, and  those  which  from  a  respectable  origin  sink 
into  contempt  (we  had  above,  p.  40,  an  example  of.  both 
these  changes  in  the  same  word,  our  knight  and  the 
German  Jenecht)  ;  between  words  which  become  so  con- 
ventionally inexpressive  that  we  seek  for  newer  and 
more  positive  phraseology,  and  those  which,  dealing 
with  delicate  subjects,  become  too  directly  suggestive, 
and  are  replaced  in  refined  usage  by  others  which*  hint 
more  remotely  at  the  intended  sense;  between  words 
which  for  no  assignable  reason  become  the  fashion,  and 
others  which  as  causelessly  come  to  be  looked  askance 
at  and  avoided.  Some  of  these  cases  will  call  for  re- 
mark farther  on,  in  other  connections :  for  the  present 
we  must  be  satisfied  with  having  noticed  at  least  the 
principal  tendencies,  those  which  have  most  influence 
on  the  growth  of  language. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

GROWTH  OF  LANGUAGE  :  LOSS  OF  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

Loss  of  words ;  its  causes  ;  obsolescent  and  obsolete  words.  Loss 
of  meanings.  Loss  of  grammatical  forms  and  the  distinc- 
tions conveyed  by  them;  examples;  excess  of  this  loss  in 
English. 

We  saw  above  (in  the  third  chapter)  that  loss  of 
what  had  constituted  the  material  of  a  language  was  an 
appreciable  element  in  tbat  constant  change  and  devel- 
opment which  we  called  its  growth.  Even  such  a  pro- 
cess of  subtraction  is  fairly  enough  to  be  reckoned  as  a 
part  of  growth;  just  as  the  growth  of  organic  beings 
consists  in  removal  as  well  as  in  resupply.  And  our 
preliminary  illustrations  showed  us  that  the  loss  might 
consist  either  in  the  disappearance  of  complete  words 
from  a  vocabulary,  or  in  the  disappearance  of  the  signs 
of  grammatical  distinction. 

The  reduction  of  a  vocabulary  by  loss  of  its  words 
is  a  matter  so  simple  that  we  shall  not  need  to  spend 
much  time  upon  it. 

As  all  the  items  of  a  given  language  are  kept  in  ex- 
istence only  by  being  taught  and  learned,  it  is  evident 
enough  that  the  cessation  of  this  process  of  tradition  with 
regard  to  any  item  will  bring  about  its  annihilation. 
Existence,  in  speech,  is  use;  and  disuse  is  destruction. 
Whatever  leads  to  disuse  leads  to  loss;  and  there  is 


DISAPPEARANCE  OP   WORDS.  99 

nothing  else  that  can  have  that  effect.  And  there  are, 
accordingly,  two  principal  ways  in  which  loss  can  occur. 
In  the  first  place,  the  disappearance  from  before  the 
attention  of  a  community  of  the  conceptions  designated 
by  certain  words  occasions  the  disappearance  of  those 
words.  If  anything  that  people  once  thought  and 
talked  about  comes  to  concern  them  no  longer,  its 
phraseology  goes  into  oblivion — unless,  of  course,  it  be 
preserved,  as  a  memory  of  the  past,  by  some  of  those 
means  which  culture  supplies.  It  has  been  so,  for  ex- 
ample, with  the  old  heathen  religion  of  our  Germanic 
ancestors.  Once,  the  names  of  Thor  and  Woden,  of  Tuis 
and  Freya,  and  the  rest  of  them,  were  as  common 
on  English  lips  as  those  of  Christ  and  the  Virgin  Mary, 
of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  are  nowadays;  but,  save  for 
their  fortuitous  and  generally  unrecognized  retention  in 
the  names  of  the  days  of  the  week,  they  have  become 
extinct  in  the  speech  of  common  life,  and  are  known 
only  to  curious  students  of  antiquity.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  a  host  of  words  belonging  to  the  vocabulary 
of  the  ancient  arts  and  sciences,  the  ancient  institutions 
and  customs.  The  technical  terms  of  chivalry  mostly 
fell  out  as  those  of  modern  warfare  came  in;  those  of 
astrology,  as  this  was  crowded  from  existence  by  as- 
tronomical science.  Only,  we  have  here  and  there,  not 
always  consciously,  in  our  present  speech,  reminiscences 
of  the  old  order  of  things,  in  the  shape  of  words  trans- 
ferred to  new  uses.  Even  so  common  and  indispensable 
a  term  as  influence  is  said  to  be  of  astrological  ori- 
gin, denoting  in  its  early  use  only  the  bearing  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  on  human  affairs;  disaster  is  etymo- 
logically  a  mishap  due  to  a  baleful  stellar  aspect;  and 
we  have  already  noted  jovial,  saturnine,  mercurial,  as 
names  for  dispositions  that  were  regarded  as  produced 


100  LOSS  OF  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

by  the  influence  of  planets.  In  like  manner,  part  of 
the  vocabulary  of  hawking,  when  that  mode  of  secur- 
ing game  went  out  of  use,  was  transferred  to  the  new 
apparatus :  as  an  especially  noticeable  instance,  musket 
was  the  name  of  a  certain  small  hawk. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  words  are  crowded  out  of 
use,  and  so  out  of  life,  by  the  coming  into  use  of  other 
words  which  mean  the  same  thing,  and  which  for  some 
cause,  definable  or  not,  win  the  popular  favor,  and  sup- 
plant their  predecessors.  Of  this  process  we  found 
examples  in  our  specimen-passage :  the  honest  Saxon 
derivatives  or  compounds  TIcelend,  reste-dceg ,  leorning- 
cnihtas,  are  replaced  in  our  usage  by  the  outlandish 
terms  Savior,  sabbath,  disciple,  and  have  themselves 
disappeared.  And  this  is  but  a  specimen  of  a  process 
of  wide  reach  and  abundant  results  in  English.  In  con- 
sequence of  the  Norman  conquest,  a  considerable  body 
of  French  words  was  poured  in  upon  our  language,  and 
gradually  accepted  and  put  to  service  as  an  integral  part 
of  it.  To  no  small  degree,  indeed,  as  a  direct  enrich- 
ment of  English  speech,  by  furnishing  expression  for 
new  ideas,  or  French  synonyms  for  Saxon  words,  each 
useful  in  its  own  style  and  connection:  like  brotherly 
and  fraternal,  outlandish  and  foreign,  forgive  and  par- 
don, rot  and  decay,  hue  and  color,  stench  and  odor,  fore- 
sight and  providence.  But  to  a  considerable  extent  also 
there  was  an  over-enrichment,  which  the  requirements 
of  practical  use  did  not  justify;  and  the  intrusion  of 
the  new  caused  an  extrusion  of  the  old.  Thus  a  host 
of  Saxon  words  gave  place  to  substitutes  of  foreign 
origin :  nothing  would  be  easier  than  to  add  to  the 
examples  given  above  numberless  others,  like  ivanhope 
displaced  by  despair,  ayenbite  by  remorse,  in  wit  by  con- 
science, and  so  on. 


DISAPPEARANCE  OP  WORDS.  101 

Nor  is  it  by  foreign  importation  alone  that  words  of 
native  growth  become  superfluous,  and  are  dropped  out 
of  a  language.  There  are  cases  in  abundance  of  a 
word's  simply  going  out  of  fashion,  becoming  obsoles- 
cent and  then  obsolete,  by  an  act  of  suppression  at- 
tributable only  to  what  we  call  chance  or  caprice.  We 
have  one  or  two  fair  examples  of  it  in  our  specimen- 
passage,  as  already  pointed  out  (pp.  39,  43)  :  namely 
for  and  soth.  In  Anglo-Saxon,  the  verb  faran,  '  fare,' 
was  in  frequent  and  familiar  use  in  the  simple  sense  of 
'  go  '  or  '  pass.'  Gan,  '  go,'  was  also  good  English,  with 
its  irregular  preterit  code,  '  went ; '  likewise  gangan, 
'  gang,'  with  geng,  '  ganged; '  and  wendan,  '  turn,  wend,' 
with  wende,  '  turned,  went.'  Out  of  this,  as  it  was 
found,  somewhat  wasteful  provision  of  words  for 
'  going,'  our  later  English  has  made  arbitrary  selec- 
tion of  go  and  went,  dropping  the  rest — or  else,  as  in 
the  case  of  fare,  restricting  them  to  special  uses.  In 
a  similar  way,  equus  has  gone  out  of  use  as  name  for 
'  horse  '  in  all  the  descendants  of  the  Latin,  and  has 
been  replaced  by  caballus,  which  was  originally  a  word 
of  inferior  dignity,  like  our  nag;  although,  in  chivalry, 
etc.,  it  has  since  come  to  honor  enough:  so  magnus  has 
been  superseded  by  grandis,  and  pulcher  by  bellus;  and 
so,  in  French,  vulpes  has  been  given  up  for  renard, 
which  is  the  German  Reinliart,  a  proper  name,  by  which 
a  fox  was  at  one  time  popularly  called,  much  as  we 
call  a  dog  "  Tray."  It  may  even  happen  that  an  im- 
portant word  dies  out,  without  provision  of  any  full 
substitute :  so  the  Anglo-Saxon  iveorthan,  corresponding 
to  the  German  werden,  '  become.'  Doubtless  the  trans- 
fer to  its  present  meaning  of  become  (literally  '  come  by, 
get  at,  get')  caused  the  oblivion  of  the  older  and  more 
legitimate  synonym;  and  with  this  went  the  possibility 


102  LOSS  OF  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

of  such  distinctions  as  the  German  makes  abundantly 
by  means  of  werden:  especially,  that  of  the  true  passive 
cs  wird  gebrochen,  '  it  is  getting  broken/  i.  e.  '  is  under- 
going fracture/  as  against  es  ist  gebrochen, '  it  is  broken/ 
i.  e.  '  has  undergone  fracture ; '  whence,  further,  the  ne- 
cessity for  such  awkward,  but  naturally  formed  and 
really  unavoidable  phrases  as  it  is  being  broken. 

By  these  means,  there  is  in  every  language  a  certain 
amount  of  obsolescent  material,  in  various  stages :  some 
words  that  are  only  unusual,  or  restricted  to  particular 
phrases  (like  stead,  in  in  stead  alone)  ;  some  that  belong 
to  a  particular  style,  archaic  or  poetical ;  some  that  have 
become  strange  and  unintelligible  to  ordinary  speakers, 
though  formerly  in  every-day  use;  some  that  survive 
only  in  local  dialects.  And  the  older  records  of  any 
tongue,  if  preserved,  show  words  in  greater  or  less  num- 
ber that  are  gone  past  recovery. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  even  to  spend,  in  passing,  a  sin- 
gle word  upon  the  somewhat  analogous  loss,  by  words 
and  phrases,  of  their  old  meanings,  although  this  may 
also  involve,  in  its  manner  and  degree,  a  reduction  of 
the  resources  of  expression.  The  examples  of  transfer 
of  meaning  given  in  the  last  chapter  have  shown  also 
sufficiently  that  the  process  is  not  always,  though  it  may 
be  usually,  an  addition  of  new  meanings  without  an 
abandonment  of  the  old.  It  may  be,  too,  that  the  sub- 
stantial sense  of  a  word  remains  to  it,  while  its  acces- 
sory suggestiveness  is  altered;  so  when  Milton  speaks 
of  ladies  who  "  from  their  eyes  rain  influence,"  we  miss 
the  whole  poetic  significance  of  the  line  if  we  do  not 
know  the  astrological  allusion  it  involves.  In  reading 
older  authors,  we  are  constantly  liable  to  this  loss  or 
misunderstanding,  often  skimming  a  mere  surface  com- 
prehension off  that  which  has  a  profound  meaning,  or 


LOSS  OF  FORMS.  103 

deluding  ourselves  with   a  belief  that  we  understand 
where  the  real  sense  escapes  us. 

A  subject  of  greater  consequence  and  deeper  reach 
in  language-history  is  the  loss  of  old  distinctions  of 
grammatical  form.  Of  this,  our  illustrative  sentence 
brought  to  light  several  striking  examples,  already 
briefly  noticed  by  us.  By  the  wearing  off,  under  the 
prevalent  phonetic  tendency,  of  the  old  infinitive  end- 
ing an  (Middle  English  and  German  en),  our  infinitive 
as  a  verbal  form  is  no  longer  different  from  the  root  of 
verbal  inflection.  And  yet  we  do  not  fail  to  appreciate 
distinctly  enough  the  idea  of  the  form,  and  have  even 
(as  we  saw)  fabricated  a  new  sign  to  as  a  kind  of  substi- 
tute for  the  obliterated  suffix.  Again,  having  lost  all 
such  signs  of  plurality  as  the  final  on  of  ongunnon,  we 
no  longer  distinguish  the  plural  of  a  verbal  tense  for- 
mally from  the  singular  except  in  am  and  are,  was  and 
were:  yet  here,  also,  the  difference  made  by  us  between 
singular  and  plural  nouns  and  pronouns,  scantily  supple- 
mented by  the  absence  of  a  personal  ending  in  they  love 
as  compared  with  he  loves,  seems  still  to  keep  up  in  full 
life  the  old  distinction.  The  se  and  tha,  however,  as 
singular  and  plural  respectively,  and  the  former  of  them 
as  specifically  masculine  (the  feminine  was  seo,  and  the 
neuter  thcet),  are  examples  of  a  class  of  grammatical  dis- 
tinctions which  have  gone  by  the  board,  swept  clean 
away,  so  that  we  have  forgotten  that  they  ever  existed: 
namely,  the  variation  of  an  adjective  word  for  gender 
and  number  and  case.  The  Anglo-Saxon  adjective  had 
a  fuller  inflection  than  the  German,  almost  as  full  a  one 
as  the  Greek  or  Latin;  it  even  had  a  double  one,  defi- 
nite and  indefinite,  like  the  German;  and  the  language 
still  retained  the  old  system  of  concord,  of  formal  cor- 
respondence between  a  substantive  and  its  qualifier  or 


104  LOSS  OF  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

representative,  which,  founded  on  the  original  identity 
of  substantive  and  adjective,  is  one  of  the  glories  of  a 
completely  inflective  language;  but  since  we  have  lost 
it,  we  have  never  thought  of  missing  or  regretting  it ; 
and  no  one  of  us  would  be  easy  to  convince  that,  when 
we  say  good  men,  there  would  be  anything  gained  by 
giving  the  word  good  a  different  form  from  that  which 
it  has  in  good  man.  And  yet  less,  from  that  which  it 
lias  in  good  women.  For  the  distinctions  of  gender 
have  been  extirpated  even  in  our  nouns.  To  us,  the 
name  or  appellation  of  a  person  is  masculine  or  feminine 
only  according  as  the  person  is  male  or  female;  and  of 
sex  in  the  lower  animals  we  make  very  small  account; 
while  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors  were  as  much  under 
the  dominion  of  that  old  artificial  grammatical  distinc- 
tion of  all  the  objects  of  thought  as  masculine,  feminine, 
and  neuter,  on  a  basis  only  in  small  part  coinciding  with 
actual  sex,  as  are  the  Germans  now,  or  as  were  the 
Greeks  and  Latins  of  old :  it  was  one  of  the  original 
and  characteristic  features  of  that  language  from  which 
all  these,  and  most  of  the  other  tongues  of  Europe,  are 
descended.  The  French  has  suffered  the  same  loss  only 
partially,  having  saved  the  distinction  of  masculine  from 
feminine,  but  confounded  neuter  and  masculine  together 
by  the  obliteration  of  their  respective  marks  of  differ- 
ence. But  also  the  old  scheme  of  cases  in  our  nouns 
has  become  a  wreck  and  a  remnant,  although  the  dis- 
tinctions on  which  it  is  founded  are  just  as  necessary 
a  part  of  language  as  ever.  The  English  has  no  dative, 
and  no  accusative  except  in  a  few  pronouns  (him,  them. 
whom,  etc.)  ;  the  French  is  still  poorer,  having  not  even 
a  possessive;  although  it  makes  in  a  few  pronominal 
words  a  somewhat  evanescent  distinction  of  subject  and 
object.     We  have  also  nearly  parted  with  our  subjunc- 


EXCESSIVE  LOSS  IN  ENGLISH.  105 

tive,  which  in  German  is  as  rich  in  forms  as  is  the 
indicative. 

The  English  is,  in  truth,  of  all  the  languages  of  its 
kindred,  the  one  which  most  remarkably  illustrates  that 
mode  of  linguistic  change  consisting  in  the  loss  of  for- 
mal grammatical  distinction  by  synthetic  means;  there 
is  no  other  known  tongue  which,  from  having  been  so 
rich  in  them,  has  become  so  poor;  none  which  has  so 
nearly  stripped  its  root-syllables  of  the  apparatus  of  suf- 
fixes with  which  they  were  formerly  clothed,  and  left 
them  monosyllabic.  All  this  has  come  about  mainly 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  tendency  to  ease  and 
abbreviation,  a  tendency  which  in  this  department  of  its 
working,  especially,  makes  truly  for  decay;  the  conserv- 
ative force,  the  strictness  of  traditional  transmission,  has 
not  been  sufficient  to  resist  its  inroads.  Much  of  the 
loss  has  been  the  work  of  the  last  few  centuries ;  and 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  pointing  out  causes  which  have 
at  least  quickened  it.  When  men  learn  a  strange  lan- 
guage, by  a  practical  process,  they  are  apt  especially  to 
make  bad  work  with  its  endings;  if  they  get  the  body 
of  the  word,  its  main  significant  part,  intelligibly  cor- 
rect, they  will  be  content  to  leave  the  relations  to  be 
understood  from  the  connection.  This  was  what  helped 
the  decay  of  the  Latin  tongue,  and  its  reduction,  in  the 
mouths  of  Italians,  Celts,  Iberians,  and  others,  into  the 
corrupted  and  abbreviated  shape  of  the  modern  Romanic 
dialects;  and  the  irruption  into  England  of  the  French- 
speaking  Normans,  and  their  fusion  with  the  Saxon- 
speaking  English,  added  an  appreciable  element  of  force 
to  a  tendency  which  was  perhaps  already  sufficiently 
marked  in  the  later  Anglo-Saxon. 

But  it  is  only  in  degree  that  the  English  differs 
herein  from  the  other  languages  of  its  family,  and  from 


106  LOSS  OF  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

those  of  other  families.  The  tendency  to  abbreviation 
for  ease,  for  economy  of  effort  in  expression,  is  a  uni- 
versal and  a  blind  one;  destruction  lies  everywhere  in 
its  path.  The  same  process  which,  by  a  disguising 
fusion  and  integration  of  elements  once  independent 
makes  a  word  or  form,  goes  straight  on  to  its  contrac- 
tion and  mutilation — and  in  early  language  as  certainly, 
though  not  necessarily  so  rapidly,  as  in  later.  There  is 
believed  to  be  hardly  anything,  if  anything  at  all,  ear- 
lier in  the  structure  of  our  language  than  the  first-per- 
sonal endings,  mi  in  the  singular,  mast  in  the  plural. 
Yet  these  are  already  economized  alterations  of  some- 
thing still  more  primitive;  the  most,  especially,  so 
changed  that  the  comparative  philologists  dispute  as  to 
its  derivation.  All  that  we  have  left  of  either  of  them 
in  English  is  the  solitary  m  of  am  (for  as-mi).  And 
every  language  related  with  ours  has  something  of  the 
same  loss  to  show ;  and  like  losses  in  every  other  depart- 
ment of  inflection  and  of  derivation. 

The  forms,  even  of  the  richest  known  languages, 
embody  and  bring  to  distinct  consciousness  only  a  small 
part  of  the  infinity  of  relations  which  subsist  among 
the  objects  of  thought,  and  which  the  mind  impliedly 
recognizes,  even  when  it  does  not  direct  attention  to 
them  by  expression.  Not  one  of  those  which  are  ex- 
pressed, any  more  than  those  which  have  not  found  em- 
bodiment, is  absolutely  essential  to  successful  speech. 
When  it  has  attained  expression,  the  mind  which  con- 
templates it  is  not  dependent  upon  its  audible  sign,  but 
may  even  be  made  carelessly  secure  by  this,  and,  while 
realizing  the  idea,  permit  itself  to  drop  the  sign  as  not 
indispensable.  But  we  may  note  for  our  consolation 
that,  unless  a  people  is  undergoing  actual  degradation 
in  quantity  and  quality  of  mental  work,  it  does  not 


COMPENSATION  FOR  LOSS.  107 

lose  what  it  once  possessed  in  the  way  of  inflectional 
apparatus  without  providing  some  other  and  on  the 
whole  equivalent  means  of  expression.  The  style  of 
expression  may  become  very  much  changed,  without 
any  real  loss  of  expressiveness.  The  downfall  of  the 
case-system  was  accompanied  by  the  uprise  of  the  class 
of  prepositions;  the  loss  of  pronominal  elements  in  the 
form  of  personal  endings  led  only  to  their  more  extend- 
ed use  as  independent  words;  the  impoverishment  of 
the  scheme  of  moods  and  tenses  was  compensated  by 
the  introduction  of  a  rich  apparatus  of  auxiliaries,  capa- 
ble of  expressing  nearly  all  the  old  distinctions,  along 
with  a  host  of  new  ones. 

This  brings  us,  however,  as  we  have  already  been 
repeatedly  brought,  to  face  the  remaining  department 
of  change  of  language — namely,  the  addition  of  new 
resources  of  expression;  and  to  that  we  now  turn. 


CHAPTEE    VII. 

GROWTH  OF  LANGUAGE  :  PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND 
FORMS. 

Special  importance  of  this  mode  of  linguistic  change ;  objects 
attained  by  it.  These  objects  partly  gained  without  external 
additions ;  enrichment,  definition,  multiplication  of  meaning 
in  old  words.  Provision  of  new  styles  of  expression.  Exter- 
nal additions  ;  borrowing  from  other  languages ;  its  kind  and 
degree;  excess  of  it  in  English.  Invention  of  new  words; 
onomatopoeia.  New  words  made  by  combination  of  old  ones  ; 
production  of  forms  by  this  method  ;  its  wide  reach  and  im- 
portance ;  internal  formative  changes  really  the  result  of  ex- 
ternal additions.  Differentiation  of  the  form  of  a  word  in 
different  uses.  Multiplication  of  the  uses  of  a  word  by  de- 
rivative apparatus ;  conversion  of  one  part  of  speech  into 
another. 

In  our  examination  of  the  methods  of  change  or 
growth  in  language,  we  have  finally  to  consider  the  sub- 
ject of  acquisition  of  new  material,  of  the  means  where- 
by the  waste  incident  to  phonetic  decay  is  made  up,  and 
expression  for  new  thought  and  knowledge  provided. 
These  means  have  been  already  in  part  set  forth  or 
alluded  to ;  for  all  the  modes  of  linguistic  growth  so 
intertwine  and  interact  that  it  is  impossible  to  discuss 
any  one  of  them,  however  succinctly,  without  taking 
more  or  less  account  of  the  others. 

This  last  mode  of  change,  it  may  be  remarked  in 
introduction,  constitutes  in  a  higher  and  more  essential 
108 


CHANGE  OP  VALUE  OF  OLD  WORDS.    109 

sense  than  any  of  the  others  the  growth  of  language, 
and  ought  to  bring  most  distinctly  to  light  the  forces 
actually  concerned  in  that  growth. 

The  general  object  attained  by  additions  to  language 
is  obviously  the  extension  and  the  improvement  of  ex- 
pression, supply  of  representative  signs  for  new  knowl- 
edge, amendment  in  the  representation  of  old  knowl- 
edge. But,  as  we  must  first  observe,  these  ends  are  to 
no  small  extent  gained  without  any  apparent  change  in 
language.  In  part,  by  new  syntactical  combinations  of 
the  old  materials  of  speech,  by  putting  together  old 
words  into  new  sentences:  and  this  is  plainly  a  depart- 
ment of  the  use  of  language  by  which  great  results  are 
won ;  hosts  of  new  cognitions  and  deductions  are  thus 
provided  for.  And  yet,  this  work  cannot  go  on  without 
more  or  less  affecting  the  inner  content  of  the  terms  we 
use,  changing  the  limits  and  even  the  whole  character 
of  the  conceptions  which  they  represent.  If,  for  exam- 
ple, we  say  "  the  sun  rises,  shedding  light  and  heat  on 
the  earth,"  the  sentence  is  one  which  (or  its  equivalent 
in  other  languages)  might  have  been  uttered,  so  far  as 
concerns  the  items  of  which  it  is  made  up,  at  any  time 
since  the  infancy  of  speech  and  knowledge:  but  how 
different  the  real  meaning  which  it  stands  for  as  em- 
ployed by  us,  and  by  a  modern  boor  or  an  ancient  sage ! 
Rise  to  us,  as  applied  to  the  sun,  is  only  a  concession  to 
appearances ;  we  do  not  care  to  take  the  trouble  to  say 
that  the  earth  has  been  rolling  over  till  now  our  spot 
of  it  comes  within  reach  of  the  sun's  rays;  and  as  to 
rising  and  falling,  it  is  only  since  Newton  discovered 
the  great  cosmic  law  of  gravitation  that  we  really  know 
what  the  words  denote.  It  is  a  much  shorter  time  since 
we  learned  that  light  and  heat  are  modes  of  motion  of 
matter,  apprehended  by  certain  effects  which  they  pro- 


110    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

duce  on  our  sensitive  organization.  And  the  transfor- 
mation which  sun  and  earth  have  undergone  in  our 
minds  needs  no  more  than  an  allusion.  The  example 
is,  no  doubt,  an  extreme  one;  yet  it  is  a  perfectly  fair, 
even  normal,  illustration  of  what  becomes  in  speech  of 
one  most  important  part  of  the  new  knowledge  we 
acquire.  This  kind  of  change  is  ever  operating  like  a 
ferment  through  the  whole  material  of  language,  incor- 
porating without  outward  show  the  changed  apprehen- 
sions, the  clearer  cognitions,  the  sharpened  distinctions, 
which  are  the  result  of  gradual  intellectual  growth.  It 
is,  as  we  have  called  it  before,  the  mind  of  the  com- 
munity all  the  time  at  work  beneath  the  framework  of 
its  old  language,  improving  its  instruments  of  expres- 
sion by  adapting  them  to  new  uses. 

In  fact,  all  the  ground  over  which  we  went  in  the 
fifth  chapter,  treating  the  alterations  of  meaning  as  in- 
dividual changes,  of  various  kind  and  direction,  we 
might  properly  enough  here  go  over  again,  having  in 
view  the  purposes  which  the  changes  are  made  to  sub- 
serve. That,  however,  would  take  too  much  time;  and 
we  must  content  ourselves  with  briefly  pointing  out  cer- 
tain aspects  of  the  subject. 

How  great,  in  the  first  place,  is  the  sum  of  enrich- 
ment of  language  by  this  means,  may  be  seen  by  ob- 
serving the  variety  of  meanings  belonging  to  our  words. 
If  each  of  them  were  like  a  scientific  term,  limited  to  a 
definite  class  of  strictly  similar  things,  the  number 
which  the  cultivated  speaker  now  uses  would  be  very 
far  from  answering  his  purposes.  But  it  is  the  cus- 
tomary office  of  a  word  to  cover,  not  a  point,  but  a 
territory,  and  a  territory  that  is  irregular,  heterogene- 
ous, and  variable.  A  certain  noted  English  lexicog- 
rapher thought  he  had  performed  a  great  feat  when  he 


MULTIPLICATION  OP  MEANINGS.  HI 

had  reduced  the  uses  of  go.od  to  forty  varieties,  besides 
an  insoluble  residue  of  a  dozen  or  two  of  phrases;  and, 
though  we  need  not  accept  all  his  distinctions  as  valu- 
able, their  number  at  any  rate  indicates  a  real  condition 
of  things.  No  student  who  remembers  his  occasional 
despair  as  (in  early  stages  of  his  studies)  he  has  glanced 
over  the  lists  of  meanings  of  Greek  and  Latin  words  in 
his  dictionaries,  trying  to  find  the  one  that  fitted  the 
case  in  hand,  will  question  that  foreign  words,  at  any 
rate,  have  a  perplexing  variety  of  signification;  but  the 
case  is  precisely  the  same  with  the  foreigner  who  uses  an 
English  dictionary.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  competent 
lexicographer,  in  any  language,  to  reduce  the  apparent 
confusion  to  order  by  discovering  the  nucleus,  the  natu- 
ral etymological  meaning  from  which  all  the  rest  have 
come  by  change  and  transfer,  and  by  drawing  out  the 
others  in  proper  relation  to  their  original  and  to  one  an- 
other, so  as  to  suggest  the  tie  of  association  by  which 
each  was  added  to  the  rest — if  he  do  not  find  (as  is  not 
very  rarely  the  fact)  that  the  tie  is  doubtful  or  undis- 
coverable.  If  we  were  to  count  in  our  words  only  those 
degrees  of  difference  of  meaning  for  which  in  other 
cases  separate  provision  of  expression  is  made,  the  100,- 
000  English  words  would  doubtless  be  found  equivalent 
to  a  million  or  two.  As  an  extreme  example  of  what 
this  mode  of  enrichment  can  do,  there  is  in  existence 
one  highly  cultivated  tongue,  the  Chinese,  all  the  growth 
of  which  has  had  to  be  by  differentiation  of  meaning, 
since  it  rejects  all  external  additions;  and  it  has  only 
about  1,500  words :  what  a  host  of  discordant  and 
hardly  connectable  meanings  each  word  is  compelled  to 
bear  may  be  easily  imagined. 

The  particular  mode  of  transfer  by  which  new  ex- 
pression is  most  abundantly  won  is  the  figurative  (as  set 


112    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

forth  and  illustrated  in  the  last  chapter  but  one).  But, 
rich  as  are  its  contributions  to  the  absolute  needs  of  ex- 
pression, especially  in  the  department  of  intellectual 
and  relational  language,  they  are  by  no  means  limited 
to  that.  The  mind  not  only  has  a  wonderful  facility  in 
catching  resemblances  and  turning  them  to  account,  but 
it  takes  a  real  creative  pleasure  in  the  exercise,  and  de- 
rives from  it  desirable  variety  and  liveliness  of  style. 
The  power  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  case  of  men 
whose  life-occupations  run  in  restricted  lines,  and  who 
have  little  general  culture;  when  they  come  to  talk 
upon  matters  less  familiar,  they  see  constant  analogies 
between  these  and  their  staple  subjects  of  thought,  and 
their  discourse  is  redolent  of  the  "  shop."  So  especially 
the  sailor  talks  as  if  all  the  world  were  a  ship,  and  with 
a  piquancy  and  raciness  which,  as  illustrated  in  the  nau- 
tical stories,  is  full  of  charm  to  us  land-lubbers;  and 
many  a  term  or  phrase  of  this  origin  has  passed  into 
our  general  English  tongue.  And  if  we  would  see  how 
far  the  phraseology  of  the  mine  and  the  card-table  can 
be  made  to  go  in  figurative  substitution  for  ordinary 
speech,  we  may  read,  in  Mark  Twain's  "  Roughing  It  " 
(chap,  xlvii.),  that  amusing  (and,  in  this  aspect,  in- 
structive) account  of  the  interview  between  the  preacher 
and  the  gambler  who  wants  to  get  his  late  exemplary 
partner  decently  buried.  For  a  more  dignified  example, 
take  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  Vedic  poets  to  the 
cattle-yard  and  the  pasture  for  the  staple  of  their  com- 
parisons, and  for  the  suggestion  of  many  a  term  used 
later,  without  any  sense  of  a  figure  involved  in  it,  to 
express  human  conditions.  So  far  as  this  is  odd  or  un- 
dignified, it  forms  the  largest  element  of  what  we  call 
"slang,"  and  we  frown  upon  it;  and  properly  enough; 
but  yet  it  is  only  the  excess  and  abuse  of  a  tendency 


CONVENTIONAL  PHRASES.  113 

which  is  wholly  legitimate,  and  of  the  highest  value,  in 
the  history  of  speech.  It  seeks  relief  from  the  often 
oppressive  conventionality,  even  insipidity,  of  words 
worn  out  by  the  use  of  persons  who  have  put  neither 
knowledge  nor  feeling  into  them,  and  which  seem  in- 
capable of  expressing  anything  that  is  real.  In  the  ex- 
uberance of  mental  activity,  and  the  natural  delight  of 
language-making,  slang  is  a  necessary  evil;  and  there 
are  grades  and  uses  of  slang  whose  charm  no  one  need 
be  ashamed  to  feel  and  confess;  it  is  like  reading  a 
narrative  in  a  series  of  rude  but  telling  pictures,  in- 
stead of  in  words. 

A  meaningless  conventionality,  to  be  sure,  has  also 
its  special  uses,  as  in  the  forms  of  social  intercourse, 
where  we  are  sometimes  called  upon  to  disguise  instead 
of  disclosing  our  thoughts  by  speech.  To  take  an  ex- 
ample or  two  of  the  simplest  kind — we  say  "  how  do  you 
do  ?  "  to  an  acquaintance,  but  should  feel  imposed  upon 
if  he  answered  by  detailing  all  the  symptoms  of  his 
health;  we  begin  a  letter  to  one  whom  we  really  detest 
with  "  my  dear  sir,"  and  at  the  end  declare  ourselves  his 
"  obedient  servant,"  though  we  should  resent  a  single 
word  from  him  which  bore  the  semblance  of  a  command. 
And  so  in  many  other  cases :  to  devise  more  sincere 
phrases  would  seem  blunt  and  odd,  an  unbecoming  in- 
trusion of  our  personality.  Then,  again,  there  are  sub- 
jects of  decency  or  delicacy,  with  reference  to  which  we 
have  to  pick  our  expressions  very  carefully,  if  we  would 
not  offend  or  disgust.  It  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
illustrations  possible  of  the  dominion  which  words  have 
won  over  our  thoughts,  that  we  will  tolerate  in  indirect, 
figurative,  merely  suggestive  expression  what  would  be 
repulsive  in  direct  statement.  Here,  by  an  effect  con- 
trary to  that  which  we  noticed  above,  a  term  perhaps 


114    PRODUCTION  OP  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

becomes  after  a  time,  by  frequent  use,  too  directly  sig- 
nificant, and  we  have  to  devise  a  new  one,  less  lively. 

Thus,  independently  of  any  marked  increase  of 
knowledge  and  multiplication  of  conceptions,  as  well  as 
in  connection  with  this,  the  instrument  of  expression  is 
continually  undergoing  alteration  for  the  better,  by 
being  applied  to  more  varied  and  defter  modes  of  use. 
The  same  methods  of  increase  serve  both  the  one  pur- 
pose and  the  other.  We  have  perhaps  already  given 
sufficient  attention,  in  the  fifth  chapter,  to  that  most 
general  and  grandest  of  movements  of  signification, 
which  carries  words  over  from  a  more  material  and  sub- 
stantial value  toward  one  that  is  more  conceptual  and 
formal,  in  its  two  departments  of  the  making  of  intel- 
lectual expression  and  the  production  of  form-words — 
in  the  former,  turning  more  to  the  uses  of  new  thought ; 
in  the  latter,  more  toward  the  completion  of  the  ex- 
pression of  old  thought;  and  we  may  proceed  to  take 
up  the  other  and  more  conspicuous  part  of  growth,  con- 
sisting in  external  additions  to  language,  the  accession 
of  new  words  to  the  vocabulary. 

And  we  may  best  begin  with  that  particular  mode 
of  external  increase  which  is  the  most  extraneous  of  all 
— namely,  the  bringing  into  a  language  of  words  bor- 
rowed out  of  other  languages.  Borrowing,  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  is  well-nigh  universally  resorted  to;  there 
is  hardly  a  dialect  in  the  world,  of  which  the  speakers 
ever  come  in  contact  with  those  of  another  dialect, 
which  has  not  taken  something  out  of  that  other.  What 
comes  most  easily  after  this  fashion  is  names  for  articles 
and  institutions  of  foreign  growth,  which,  on  making 
their  acquaintance,  and  deeming  them  worthy  of  intro- 
duction or  adoption,  we  often  find  it  convenient  to  call 
by  the  names  given  them  by  their  former  possessors. 


FOREIGN  WORDS.  115 

So  the  banana  is  a  tropical  fruit,  with  its  own  tropical 
title;  and  the  nations  of  continental  Europe  mostly  call 
anana,  for  the  same  reason,  the  fruit  for  which  we  have 
chosen  to  provide  the  more  native  appellation  of  pine- 
apple— i.  e.  such  an  apple  as,  judging  from  its  cones,  a 
pine  might  bear  if  it  tried  to  be  an  apple-tree.  So  also 
with  the  institution  of  the  tabu,  of  which  the  Polyne- 
sian name  has  fairly  won  a  place  in  more  than  one 
European  tongue.  A  language  like  ours — since  we 
come  in  contact  with  nearly  all  the  nations  of  the  world, 
and  draw  in  to  ourselves  whatever  we  find  of  theirs  that 
can  be  made  useful  to  us,  and  since  even  our  culture  de- 
rives from  various  sources — .comes  to  contain  specimens 
from  dialects  of  very  diverse  origin.  Thus,  we  have 
religious  words  from  the  Hebrew,  as  sabbath,  seraph, 
jubilee;  certain  old-style  scientific  terms  from  the 
Arabic,  as  algebra,  alkali,  zenith,  cipher,  besides  a  con- 
siderable heterogeneous  list,  like  lemon,  sugar  (ulti- 
mately Sanskrit),  sherbet,  magazine;  from  the  Persian, 
caravan,  chess,  shawl,  and  even  a  word  which  has  won 
so  familiar  and  varied  use  as  check;  from  Hindi,  calico 
and  chintz,  punch  and  toddy;  from  Chinese,  tea  and 
nankeen;  from  American  Indian  languages,  canoe  and 
moccasin,  guano  and  potato,  sachem  and  caucus.  Some 
of  these  are  specimens  out  of  tolerably  long  lists;  and 
there  are  yet  longer  from  sundry  of  the  modern  Euro- 
pean languages,  as  the  Spanish  and  Italian.  All  to- 
gether, they  do  not  make  up  any  considerable  propor- 
tion of  English  speech;  but  they  have  for  us  a  high 
theoretical  importance,  as  casting  light  upon  the  general 
process  of  names-giving,  of  which  we  shall  treat  more 
particularly  in  the  next  chapter.  It  is  by  no  process  of 
organic  growth,  assuredly,  that  we  put  a  certain  title 
upon  a  certain  thing  because  some  far-off  community,  of 


116    PRODUCTION  OP  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

which  we  know  little  and  for  which  we  care  less,  gave 
it  that  title;  yet  this  makes,  when  once  in  use,  just  as 
good  English  as  the  words  that  belong  to  the  very  old- 
est Saxon  families,  or  that  "  came  in  with  the  Con- 
queror." 

This  last  expression,  however,  reminds  us  that  there 
is  another  kind  and  rate  of  borrowing  in  which  our  lan- 
guage indulges,  more  or  less  in  common  with  others. 
All  the  leading  nations  of  Europe  have  received  their 
culture  and  their  religion,  directly  or  indirectly,  from 
Greece  and  Rome.  Some  of  them,  indeed — as  the  vari- 
ous tribes  of  Italy,  the  Celts  of  Gaul,  the  Celtiberians  of 
the  Spanish  peninsula — took  so  much  from  Rome 
that,  along  with  the  rest,  they  accepted  also  her  speech, 
in  mass,  and  now  talk  a  nearly  pure  Latinic  dialect. 
With  the  others,  there  followed  only  a  result  akin  with 
that  which  we  have  been  noticing  above;  in  connection 
with  new  ideas  and  institutions,  they  took  the  names  by 
which  these  were  known  to  their  more  original  possess- 
ors. Thus  there  came  to  be  numerous  Latin  and  Greek 
words  in  the  Germanic,  the  Slavonic,  and  the  Celtic- 
tongues.  Not  a  few  of  them  occur  in  the  oldest  Anglo- 
Saxon;  and  they  abound  in  the  German  vocabulary, 
even  in  those  parts  of  it  which  have  an  original  aspect. 
The  dependence  of  Europe  on  the  classical  sources  for 
knowledge,  arts,  and  sciences,  continued  long.  Latin 
was  everywhere  read  and  written  by  the  learned,  almost 
as  the  only  language  worthy  of  such  high  uses;  and 
even  now  its  study  is  a  pervading  element  in  education. 
This  kept  fully  alive  the  habit  of  resorting  to  the  stores 
of  Latin  expression  to  satisfy  all  those  needs  of  the 
learned  which  the  more  regular  growth  of  the  popular 
speech  did  not  supply.  In  a  certain  way,  it  was  easier 
for  those  modern  tongues  which  are  themselves  derived 


BORROWING  OF  FOREIGN  WORDS.  117 

from  the  Latin  to  do  this  than  for  others;  but  we  must 
not  estimate  their  advantage  too  highly,  observing  how 
little  we  ourselves  borrow  from  the  Anglo-Saxon,  or 
from  any  other  Germanic  language.  The  Latin  and 
Greek  alone  have  occupied  such  a  position  that  all  Eu- 
rope could  resort  to  them  for  the  enrichment  of  its  mul- 
tifarious speech.  In  other  parts  of  the  world,  other 
languages  have  stood  in  a  like  place.  To  the  scores  of 
tribes  and  nations  of  discordant  speech  in  India,  the 
Sanskrit  has  long  been  the  sacred  and  literary  dialect, 
and  its  literature  the  fountain  of  higher  thought  and 
knowledge;  and  all  the  cultivated  tongues  of  modern 
India  have  come  to  be  full  of  Sanskrit  words,  as  the 
European  tongues  are  of  Latin.  The  Persians,  a  thou- 
sand years  and  more  ago,  were  forced  to  receive  a  new 
religion  and  constitution  at  the  hands  of  their  Arab  con- 
querors, and  modern  Persian  is  almost  more  Arabic  than 
Persian.  The  Turks  burst  into  Persia  as  a  wild  uncul- 
tivated horde,  with  nearly  everything  to  learn  save  war 
and  plunder;  and  their  present  written  style  is  more 
crowded  with  Persian  and  Arabic  than  the  most  extreme 
Johnsonese  with  Latin.  The  Japanese  made  themselves, 
fifteen  centuries  since,  the  pupils  of  the  Chinese;  and 
they  have  absorbed  the  Chinese  vocabulary  almost  bodily 
into  their  own  language. 

The  English,  then,  is  not  at  all  peculiar  in  its  bor- 
rowing freely  from  other  tongues  to  enrich  its  vocabu- 
lary; it  is  merely  peculiar  among  European  languages 
for  the  extent  of  its  borrowing  from  tongues  only  re- 
motely akin  with  itself.  A  trustworthy  estimate  of  the 
derivation  of  the  words  found  in  our  great  dictionaries 
makes  nearly  five  sevenths  of  them  to  be  of  classical 
derivation,  and  only  about  two  sevenths  native  Ger- 
manic: the  sum  of  derivatives  from  other  quarters — 


118    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

only  a  thousand  or  two — being  of  no  account  in  such 
an  estimate.  Of  course,  the  words  do  not  enter  into 
the  ordinary  combinations  of  practical  use  in  any  such 
proportion  as  this,  because  our  commonest  terms,  the 
bulk  of  the  material  of  ordinary  speech  and  nearly  all 
its  machinery,  are  Germanic.  In  the  list  of  words  used 
by  Milton,  for  example,  full  two  thirds  are  classical; 
but  in  a  page  anywhere  of  Milton's  poetry  the  classical 
element  is  only  ten  to  thirty  per  cent. ;  and  even  in 
Johnson's  style  its  proportion  is  but  little  greater. 

For  this  preponderance,  in  one  aspect,  of  the  bor- 
rowed material  in  English  speech,  there  are  easily  as- 
signable reasons.  The  Norman  invasion,  leading  to  a 
long  antagonism  and  final  fusion  of  a  French-speaking 
with  a  Saxon-speaking  race,  brought  in  by  violence,  as 
it  were,  a  great  store  of  French  words,  of  Latin  origin, 
and  thus  made  it  comparatively  easy  to  bring  in  without 
violence  a  great  many  more.  And  the  deadening  of  the 
native  processes  of  composition  and  derivation  and  in- 
flection, caused  in  part  by  the  same  great  historical 
event,  made  the  language  more  incapable  of  meeting 
out  of  its  own  resources  any  great  call  for  new  expres- 
sion. So,  when  the  pressing  exigencies  of  the  last  cen- 
tury or  two,  almost  unexampled  in  their  urgency,  arose, 
the  resource  of  borrowing,  already  much  availed  of,  was 
drawn  upon  almost  to  excess.  When  a  community  is 
living  quietly  on,  with  no  marked  accumulation  of  the 
fruits  of  mental  activity,  ruminating  its  old  conceptions 
and  slowly  elaborating  new,  the  purely  natural  increase, 
proceeding  slowly  and  unconsciously  from  the  great  body 
of  speakers,  will  be  likely  to  serve  all  needs.  But  when 
science  and  art  and  philosophy  are  making  rapid  ad- 
vances, when  new  branches  of  knowledge  are  springing 
up,  one  after  another,  each  calling  for  a  whole  vocabulary 


BORROWING  OF  LEARNED  WORDS.     119 

of  new  terms,  when  infinite  numbers  of  new  facts  and 
new  objects  are  coming  to  notice,  then  the  native  modes 
of  growth,  of  even  the  most  fertile  language,  will  be 
taxed  beyond  their  capacity  to  provide  a  nomenclature 
for  all.  The  call  is  in  very  great  part  for  technical  vo- 
cabularies, words  for  learned  use;  and  the  learned  find 
what  they  want  most  conveniently  in  the  learned  lan- 
guages. They  gain  in  addition  the  practical  advantage 
that  all  the  inheritors  and  continuers  of  a  common  civ- 
ilization thus  possess  something  like  a  common  dialect, 
in  which  to  denominate  those  conceptions  in  which  they 
have  a  joint  interest  closer  than  that  which  they  have 
with  the  mass  of  their  countrymen.  Our  five  sevenths 
of  classical  material  are  mainly  words  of  learned  use 
only,  which  the  young  child  does  not  acquire  in  order 
to  "  speak  English,"  and  which  the  uneducated  man 
never  learns;  a  host  of  them  are  of  rare  occurrence 
even  in  books.  But  any  one  of  them  may  come,  under 
the  conditions  of  practical  life,  to  be  as  familiar  as 
material  of  less  artificial  origin:  cases  of  this  kind  are 
gas,  Thursday  and  its  kin,  dahlia,  petroleum,  telegraph, 
photograph. 

There  are  degrees  of  kind  as  well  as  of  extent  in 
the  process  of  borrowing.  What  is  most  easily  taken 
out  of  the  stores  of  one  language  to  be  added  to  those  of 
another  is  the  names  and  epithets  of  things,  nouns  and 
adjectives;  verbs,  much  less  easily;  particles,  hardly 
at  all;  apparatus  of  derivation,  prefixes  and  suffixes. 
very  sparingly;  and  apparatus  of  inflection,  endings  of 
declension  and  conjugation,  least  of  all.  Even  English 
is  nearly  unmixed  in  its  grammar;  its  articulating  parts, 
the  elements  that  bind  ideas  together  and  show  their 
relations,  that  make  sentences,  are  almost  exclusively  of 
Anglo-Saxon  origin.     For  this  reason,  notwithstanding 


120    PRODUCTION  OP  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

the  preponderance  of  classical  material  in  its  wider  vo- 
cabulary, the  English  is  still  rightly  reckoned  a  Ger- 
manic language. 

Of  the  out-and-out  invention  of  new  words,  lan- 
guage in  the  course  of  its  recorded  history  (for  we  do 
not  now  speak  of  its  initial  stage)  presents  only  rare 
examples.  Sometimes,  however,  a  case  occurs  like  that 
of  gas,  already  noticed  as  having  been  devised  by  an 
ancient  chemist,  as  artificial  appellation  for  a  condition 
of  existence  of  matter  which  had  not  before  been  so  dis- 
tinctly apprehended  as  to  seem  to  require  a  name. 
Along  with  it,  he  proposed  bias  for  that  property  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  whereby  they  regulate  the  changes  of 
time :  this,  however,  was  too  purely  fanciful  to  recom- 
mend itself  to  general  use,  and  it  dropped  out  of  sight 
and  was  forgotten,  while  the  other  came  to  honor. 

More  frequent  than  such  words  as  this,  which  only 
by  a  lucky  hit  gain  life  and  a  career,  are  those  in  which 
the  attempt  has  been  made  in  a  rude  way  to  imitate  the 
sounds  of  nature:  as  when  the  cuckoo  and  the  pewee 
and  the  toucan  were  named  from  their  notes;  or  as  in 
some  of  the  descriptive  words  like  crack  and  crash,  hiss 
and  buzz,  which  are  by  no  means  all  old,  but  have  been 
made,  or  shaped  over  into  a  pictorial  form,  within  no 
long  time.  We  call  such  words  onomatopoeias,  literally 
'name-makings,'  because  the  Greeks  did  so:  they  could 
conceive  of  no  way  in  which  absolutely  new  language- 
material  should  be  produced  except  by  such  imitation. 

We  pass  now  to  notice  another  process,  whereby 
there  comes  into  being  for  the  uses  of  expression  ma- 
terial which  is  only  in  a  certain  sense  new,  but  which 
nevertheless  furnishes  notable  enrichment  to  speech, 
and  in  more  than  one  department;  a  process  which  the 
general  history  of  language  shows  to  be  more  important 


COMPOUND  WORDS.  121 

than  any  other.  It  is  the  composition  of  words,  the 
putting  two  independent  elements  together  to  form  a 
single  designation.  Our  illustrative  passage  furnished 
us  one  or  two  examples  of  it :  namely,  reste-dceg,  '  rest- 
day,'  and  leorning-cnihtas,  '  learning-knights,'  i.  e.  '  pu- 
pils.' Such  a  word  is  logically  an  abbreviated  descrip- 
tive phrase,  with  the  signs  of  relation,  the  ordinary 
inflections  or  connectives,  omitted;  the  two  main  ideas 
are  put  side  by  side,  and  the  mind  left  to  infer  their  re- 
lation to  one  another  from  the  known  circumstances  of 
the  case.  It  is  so  far  an  abnegation,  for  the  sake  of 
brevity  and  convenience,  of  the  advantages  of  a  lan- 
guage which  has  formative  elements  and  form-words. 
The  undefined  relation  may  be  of  every  variety:  thus, 
a  headache  is  a  pain  in  the  head;  a  head-dress,  a  dress 
for  the  head;  a  headland,  a  point  of  land  comparable 
to  a  head;  a  headsman,  a  man  for  cutting  off  heads; 
headway,  motion  in  the  direction  of  the  head  (of  any 
animal  but  man) ;  thus,  also,  a  steamboat  is  a  boat  pro- 
pelled by  the  force  of  steam;  a  railroad  or  railway  is 
a  road  laid  with  rails;  a  buttercup  or  butterfly  is  a  cup 
or  fly  having  the  color  of  butter:  and  so  forth.  Such 
a  word,  again,  is  formally  characterized  by  a  unity  of 
accent;  this  is  the  chief  outer  sign  of  combination 
binding  the  word  together — although  it  is  not  enough 
of  itself  to  make  a  compound;  else  the  man  and  have 
gone  and  shall  go  and  their  like  would  be  compounds 
also.  Xothing  is  simpler  or  more  common  than  for  a 
language  to  form  such  compounds.  Yet  their  frequency 
is  very  different  in  different  languages :  the  Sanskrit 
abuses  the  liberty  of  making  them ;  the  Greek,  the  Latin, 
the  German,  are  examples  of  tongues  which  use  them 
abundantly,  yet  with  wise  moderation;  the  French  has 
most  nearly  lost  the  power  of  their  production.  Though 
9 


122    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

in  English  they  are  far  from  being  as  numerous  as  in 
German,  our  speech  is  pretty  full  of  them ;  the  words 
quoted  above  may  serve  as  examples  of  what  is  done 
in  this  way  to  increase  the  resources  of  expression.  How 
ready  the  language-users  are  to  forget  the  source  of  the 
compound,  to  lose  the  separate  impression  of  its  con- 
stituent words,  to  use  it  as  a  unitary  sign  for  the  con- 
ception to  which  it  is  attached,  and  then  to  disguise  and 
integrate  it  by  phonetic  change,  has  been  already  pointed 
out,  and  need  not  be  here  further  dwelt  on  or  exempli- 
fied. But  a  most  important  department  of  its  action  is 
in  a  direction  which  calls  for  a  little  additional  illus- 
tration. 

Among  the  many  adjectives  which  we  sometimes 
combine  with  nouns  to  form  compound  adjectives,  there 
are  those  which,  in  virtue  of  their  meaning  and  conse- 
quent wide  applicability,  we  use  with  special  frequency, 
forming  considerable  classes  of  compounds  with  a  com- 
mon final  element  A  typical  instance  is  full,  German 
voll,  which  is  added  to  nouns  enough,  and  in  a  suffi- 
ciently general  sense,  to  be  made  a  kind  of  suffix,  its 
own  specific  force  being  lost:  dutiful  and  plentiful 
are  equivalent  to  duteous  and  plenteous.  Its  opposite 
is  less,  German  los;  not  our  adjective  less,  but,  as  the 
German  indicates  and  as  the  older  forms  of  our  lan- 
guage prove,  loose;  here  the  originally  independent  word 
has  been  so  disguised  by  phonetic  change  as  to  have 
become  absolutely  an  adjective  suffix.  Ly  (of  godly, 
homely,  etc.)  has  been  already  fully  enough  explained 
(p.  41),  as  coming,  by  a  different  sort  of  phonetic 
change,  from  like.  And  a  certain  case-form  of  this  com- 
pounded adjective,  we  saw,  was  by  a  change  of  office  con- 
verted into  a  nearly  universal  adverbial  suffix:  thus, 
truly,  plentifully.    The  French  adverbial  ending  merit  is 


.      GENESIS  OP  GRAMMATICAL  FORMS.  123 

in  like  manner  from  the  Latin  ablative  mente:  grande- 
ment,  '•  grandly,'  is  by  origin  grandi  mente,  'with  great 
mind.'  Our  some  in  wholesome  (German  sain  in  heil- 
sam)  is  altered  from  older  sam,  and  identical  with  same 
in  the  sense  of  '  like.'  There  are  noun-forming  suffixes, 
also,  which  own  a  like  origin.  The  plainest  cases  among 
them,  perhaps,  are  ship,  German  schaft,  in  lordship, 
hcrrschaft,  and  their  like;  and  dom,  German  thum,  in 
kingdom,  wisdom,  honigthum,  iveisthum:  the  former 
comes  from  shape,  the  latter  from  doom.  We  have 
glanced  above  at  a  case  or  two  of  verbal  tense-making 
after  the  same  fashion.  The  don  of  hyngredon  (plural 
of  hyngrede,  p.  42)  was  in  Gothic  dedum,  an  evident 
auxiliary,  our  did,  which,  at  a  time  very  early  in  the 
common  history  of  the  Germanic  dialects  (for  it  is 
found  in  them  all,  though  not  in  any  even  of  their 
nearest  relatives),  was  added  to  some  verbal  word  to 
make  a  verbal  form,  with  the  final  result  that  the  two 
became  fused  together  into  one,  even  as  we  now  add  it 
to  a  verbal  word,  the  infinitive,  to  make  a  verbal  phrase, 
I  do  love,  I  did  love,  only  without  fusion.  Quite  par- 
allel with  this  is  the  fusion  of  the  present  of  the  verb  '  to 
have  '  with  the  infinitive  in  the  Eomanic  languages,  to 
make  their  modern  future,  as  donner-ai,  'I  shall  give,' 
when  compared  with  our  verbal  phrase  I  have  to  give, 
its  unfused  equivalent.  Abundant  traces  of  the  same 
sort  of  composition,  fusion,  and  resulting  production  of 
a  new  verbal  form,  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Latin,  whose 
imperfect  in  bam,  future  in  bo,  and  perfect  in  ui  or  vi, 
are  generally  acknowledged  to  contain  as  their  endings 
certain  forms  of  the  verb  which  in  our  language  is  the 
substantive  verb  to  be.  And  even  the  Greek  and  San- 
skrit have  like  compound  forms  to  show,  of  earlier  and 
later  date:  one,  the  future  in  Skt.  syami,  Gr.  aoa,  is 


124    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

believed  to  go  back  to  the  primitive  period  of  linguis- 
tic growth  in  our  family  of  languages. 

These  are  some  of  the  plainest  among  the  numerous 
examples  which  might  be  brought  forward,  going  to 
show  that  suffixes  of  derivation  and  inflection  are  made 
out  of  independent  words,  which,  first  entering  into 
union  with  other  words  by  the  ordinary  process  of  com- 
position, then  gradually  lose  their  independent  charac- 
ter, and  finally  come  to  be,  in  a  more  or  less  mutilated 
and  disguised  form,  mere  subordinate  elements,  or  in- 
dicators of  relation,  in  more  elaborate  structures.  The 
auxiliary  processes  of  oblivion  and  attenuation  and 
transfer  of  meaning,  and  of  disguise  and  abbreviation 
of  form,  are  simply  the  same  here  as  in  all  the  other 
cases  we  have  treated;  they  are  essential  parts  of  the 
making  of  forms;  for  so  long  as  the  independent  word, 
in  its  individual  shape  and  meaning,  is  plainly  recog- 
nized in  the  combination,  so  long  does  this  remain  a  com- 
pound rather  than  a  form:  our  ful,  for  example  (Ger- 
man voll),  is  not  so  truly  a  suffix  as  ly  (lich),  because 
the  independent  adjective  is  too  apparent  in  it;  a  dis- 
guising alteration  is  needed  to  help  make  an  affix — a 
"formative  element,"  as  it  is  properly  termed,  in  distinc- 
tion from  the  "  radical  element,"  the  root  or  base,  or  the 
crude-form,  to  which  it  is  appended. 

Now  it  is  by  no  means  all,  or  even  the  largest  part, 
of  our  existing  formative  elements,  suffixes  of  deriva- 
tion and  inflection,  of  which  the  origin  in  this  method 
can  be  actually  proved;  and  if  we  are  to  believe  noth- 
ing respecting  language  which  does  not  rest  on  positive 
evidence,  we  shall  never  make  the  principle  of  combi- 
nation go  far  toward  explaining  the  growth  of  language. 
But  it  would  be  highly  unreasonable  to  demand  every- 
where such  proof.     The  disguising  effect  of  the  two 


GENESIS  OP  GRAMMATICAL  FORMS.  125 

principles  of  change  which  bear  their  part  in  every  new- 
formation  is  such  that  after  a  time  we  may  be  able  only 
to  guess,  or  not  even  that,  at  its  origin.  We  could  not 
explain  the  ly  from  modern  English  alone;  we  could 
not  be  certain  as  to  the  d  of  loved  without  the  help  of 
the  Gothic ;  nor  as  to  the  cra>  of  the  Greek  future  with- 
out the  Sanskrit.  Every  period  of  linguistic  life,  with 
its  constantly  progressing  changes  of  form  and  meaning, 
wipes  out  a  part  of  the  intermediates  which  connect  a 
derived  element  with  its  original.  There  are  a  plenty 
of  items  of  word-formation  in  even  the  modern  Eo- 
manic  languages  which  completely  elude  explanation. 
Mere  absence  of  evidence,  then,  will  not  in  the  least 
justify  us  in  assuming  the  genesis  of  an  obscure  form 
to  be  of  a  wholly  different  character  from  that  which  is 
obvious  or  demonstrable  in  other  forms.  The  presump- 
tion is  wholly  in  favor  of  the  accordance  of  the  one 
with  the  other;  it  can  only  be  repelled  by  direct  and 
convincing  evidence.  And,  in  acutal  fact,  linguistic 
study  does  not  bring  to  light  any  such  evidence;  its 
trustworthy  results  go  rather  to  prove  that  the  combi- 
nation of  independent  element  with  element  has  been 
from  the  beginning,  in  the  languages  of  our  family,  the 
fertile  and  the  sufficient  method  of  new  external  growth, 
has  furnished  the  needed  supply  of  fresh  material,  which 
then,  under  the  action  of  the  other  processes,  has  been 
applied  to  meet  the  needs  of  expression.  We  shall 
have,  by  and  by,  to  review  in  brief  the  history  of  early 
development  of  these  languages,  as  explained  by  the 
comparative  philologists  upon  the  principle  here  stated. 
But  a  part  of  our  forms,  derivative  and  inflectional, 
appear  to  be  made  by  internal  modification  rather  than 
external  addition.  We  say  hoy  and  hoys,  indeed,  but  we 
also  say  man  and  men;  we  say  love  and  loved,  but  also 


126    PRODUCTION  OP  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

read  and  read;  and  then  there  is  that  wide-reaching  and 
most  important  phenomenon  in  Germanic  language, 
the  variation  of  radical  vowel,  in  large  classes  of  words 
like  sing,  sang,  sung,  and  song;  like  break,  broke,  and 
breach;  like  bind,  bound,  bund,  and  band.  The  Greek 
has  a  kindred  but  less  conspicuous  change  in  a  consider- 
able body  of  verbs  and  verbal  derivatives  like  \et7rco, 
eknrov,  XeKotira;  like  Tpeirw,  erpairov,  rerpofa,  Tpeirro^, 
Tpdirr}^,  rpoiros;  etc.  These  are  seeming  violations  of 
the  principle  of  new  growth  by  external  addition,  by 
combination;  if,  however,  they  can  be  shown  to  be, 
after  all,  its  results,  they  will  rather  lend  it  a  strong 
support. 

Let  us  begin  with  read  read,  as  the  most  recent  and 
the  plainest  case.  In  the  Anglo-Saxon,  this  verb  and 
the  little  class  that  go  like  it  had  no  such  difference  of 
vowel  between  present  and  preterit;  and  they  had  in 
the  preterit  the  same  added  ending  as  other  "  regular  " 
or  new  verbs :  the  forms  were  rcedan,  '  read,'  rcedde, 
'  read.'  But  here  came  in  the  phonetic  principle  of  easy 
utterance :  the  penult  of  rcedde  had  a  long  vowel  be- 
fore a  doubled  consonant;  it  was  lightened  by  shorten- 
ing the  vowel — a  proceeding  so  customary  in  all  Ger- 
manic speech  that  it  has  led  to  the  frequent  orthographic 
device  of  marking  a  vowel  as  short  by  doubling  the  con- 
sonant after  it.  When,  then,  in  the  further  course  of 
abbreviation,  by  loss  of  final  vowels,  both  forms  were 
reduced  to  monosyllables,  the  double  pronunciation  of 
the  final  consonant  was  lost,  and  the  difference  of  vow- 
els was  left  alone  to  mark  the  difference  of  tense.  The 
case  is,  on  the  one  hand,  analogous  with  leave,  left,  fed, 
felt,  etc.,  where  tbere  is  a  shortening  of  the  vowel  for 
a  like  cause,  the  occurrence  of  two  consonants  after  it, 
but  where  the  consonant  group   has   been   preserved; 


APPARENT   INTERNAL   INFLECTION.  127 

and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  analogous  with  set,  put,  and 
their  like,  which  have  also  lost  their  preterit  ending, 
but,  having  a  short  vowel  in  the  present,  never  estab- 
lished a  difference  between  the  two  tenses,  and  so  have 
the  same  form  in  both.  The  distinction  of  read,  read, 
lead,  led,  etc.,  is  thus  a  mere  phonetic  accident;  a  final 
turning  to  account,  for  the  purposes  of  grammatical  ex- 
pression, of  a  difference  which  arose  secondarily,  as  the 
unforeseen  consequence  of  an  external  addition,  when 
that  addition  had  been  lost  by  phonetic  decay.  Such 
a  distinction  is  wont  to  be  termed  "  inorganic,"  as  dis- 
tinguished from  one  like  loved  from  love,  which  answers 
just  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  at  first  intended. 

As  for  man  men,  that  is  a  case  of  what  in  German 
is  termed  umlaut,  or  "  modification  of  vowel,'1  a  phe- 
nomenon of  wide  range  in  Germanic  language,  but.  of 
which  the  results  are  reduced  almost  to  a  minimum  in 
English.  It  was  originally  the  alteration  of  an  a-sound 
to  an  e-sound  by  the  assimilating  influence  of  a  follow- 
ing i  (see  above,  p.  71)  :  a  change,  therefore,  which  de- 
pended on  the  character  of  the  case-ending,  and  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  distinction  of  plural 
from  singular;  it  was  even  the  fact  in  Anglo-Saxon 
that  one  of  the  singular  cases  (dative)  had  e,  and  two  of 
the  plural  cases  (genitive  and  dative)  had  a.  But,  after 
exercising  their  assimilative  influence,  the  endings  were 
lost  (like  the  second  d  which  had  shortened  the  long 
vowel  of  read) ;  and  the  dative  and  genitive  (plural) 
were  lost  as  separate  forms;  and  so  man  and  men  were 
left  to  stand  over  against  one  another  as  singular  and 
plural.  And  because  this  difference  of  vowel  was  suf- 
ficient to  distinguish  the  two  numbers,  linguistic  usage 
did  not  go  on,  as  in  a  multitude  of  other  cases  (e.  g.  in 
ears  for  ear:  see  p.  38),  to  add  an  s  for  the  same  pur- 


128    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

pose.  Here,  again,  is  an  application  to  the  purposes  of 
grammatical  distinction  of  a  difference  which  was  acci- 
dental, inorganic,  in  its  origin. 

To  enter  into  a  full  discussion  and  explanation  of 
the  remaining  case,  the  ablaut,  or  variation  of  radical 
vowel,  in  bind,  bound,  band,  bond,  and  their  like,  would 
take  a  great  deal  more  time  than  we  can  afford  to  it, 
and  would  bring  up  some  obscure  and  difficult  points, 
as  to  which  the  opinions  of  investigators  are  still  at 
variance.  But  we  should  find  in.it  nothing  different,  as 
regards  the  essential  principles  involved,  from  what  the 
other  two  examples  have  furnished  us.  The  preterit, 
the  participle,  the  derivative  noun,  had  originally  their 
external  formative  elements — the  first  its  reduplication, 
as  in  cano  cecini,  rpeTrw  rerpo(f)a,  lialdan  haihald; 
the  other  two  their  endings  of  derivation — there  was 
no  difference  of  vowel.  And  when  the  difference  first 
appeared,  it  was  not  significant,  any  more  than  that  of 
felt  from  feel,  of  (German)  manner  from  niann;  it 
was  developed  under  purely  euphonic  influences;  it  in- 
volves, in  its  various  manifestations,  the  weakening  and 
varying  of  original  root-vowels,  under  accentual  and 
other  influences,  and  a  fusion  of  the  preterit  reduplica- 
tion with  the  root.  There  is  nothing  here  to  call  for 
the  admission  of  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  that, 
in  our  languages,  forms  are  made  by  an  external  accre- 
tion of  elements  which  were  at  first  independent  words. 

The  fact,  however,  is  here  brought  to  light,  and  con- 
stitutes an  addition  of  some  importance  to  the  means 
of  enrichment  of  language,  that  accidental  differences 
are  seized  upon  and  turned  to  account  by  being  put  to 
new  uses.  A  word  thus,  as  it  were,  divides  into  two  or 
more,  each  of  which  then  leads  an  independent  life. 
Some  notable  examples  of  this  we  have  seen  already: 


DIVISION  OP  A  WORD  INTO  TWO  OR  MORE.    129 

the  Anglo-Saxon  an  has  become  in  English  the  numeral 
one  and  the  article  an  or  a;  of  has  become  off  and  of; 
also  and  as,  like  German  also  and  als,  are  representa- 
tives of  one  original :  so  fore  and  for,  like  German 
vor,  fur,  ver;  through  and  thorough  are  a  very  peculiar 
divorcement,  with  accompanying  conversion  of  an  ad- 
verb into  an  adjective;  outer  and  utter  are  two  sides  of 
one  word  and  one  idea:  conduct  and  conduct  are  speci- 
mens of  a  large  class  of  couplets,  distinguished  by  ac- 
cent alone;  minute  and  minute  (minit)  are  a  convenient 
distinction,  which  we  might  wish  we  had  also  for  the 
two  uses  of  second;  and  genteel,  gentle,  and  gentile  are 
all  alike  the  Latin  gentilis,  and  in  their  variety  of  mean- 
ing, as  well  as  in  their  common  derivation  from  a  root 
signifying  simply  '  to  be  born,'  are  a  striking  example 
of  the  possibilities  of  linguistic  mutation. 

The  method  of  growth  out  of  the  native  resources 
of  a  language,  by  putting  its  materials  together  into  new 
combinations,  and  so  making  new  names  for  things,  and 
sometimes  new  forms,  is  of  course  one  of  much  slower 
operation  than  the  importation  of  learned  and  technical 
terms  from  abroad,  especially  when  this  is  pushed  to 
such  an  extreme  as  in  our  speech.  Above  all,  in  the 
making  of  forms,  its  progress  is  almost  insensibly  grad- 
ual, and  its  results  are  few.  It  cannot  well  take  less 
than  generations  to  pass  an  element  originally  independ- 
ent through  those  changes  of  shape  and  meaning  which 
it  must  undergo  in  order  to  become  a  suffix.  As  a  set- 
off against  this,  to  be  sure,  the  results,  once  attained, 
are  of  very  wide  application.  When,  for  example,  did 
is  worked  down  into  a  preterit  ending,  we  apply  it  to 
make  past  tenses  for  all  our  new  verbs,  however  many 
they  may  be;  and  there  are  few  adjectives  in  the  lan- 
guage which  may  not  form  their  corresponding  adverb 


130         PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

with  ly,  little  as  most  of  them  would  endure  composi- 
tion with  like.  But  if  we  take  into  consideration  the 
whole  long  course  of  life  of  a  language,  extending 
through  thousands  of  years,  and  also  the  sum  of  human 
languages  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  few  of  which,  com- 
paratively, are  placed  in  circumstances  to  derive  much 
advantage  from  borrowing,  it  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance. It  is  capable  of  providing,  along  with  variation 
of  meaning,  and  variation  of  form  under  phonetic 
change,  all  the  new  material  which  is  needed  for  the 
ordinary  development  of  expression ;  it  is  also  able,  with 
the  same  help,  to  transform  by  degrees  the  grammatical 
character  of  a  language,  adding  new  distinctions,  and 
supplying  the  place  of  those  that  are  lost  by  the  wearing- 
out  processes. 

In  connection  with  this,  we  have  to  note  one  more 
important  department  of  the  means  of  enrichment  of  a 
language:  namely,  the  capacity,  belonging  to  every 
tongue  that  has  any  share  of  an  inflective  character,  of 
multiplying  the  applicabilities,  and  so  the  usefulness,  of 
its  material,  new  or  old,  by  adding  formative  elements 
to  it,  by  putting  it  through  the  processes  of  inflection 
and  derivation.  By  no  means  all  the  formative  appara- 
tus which  a  language  possesses  can  be  turned  to  use  in 
this  way;  the  English  distinctions,  for  example,  of  he 
and  him  and  iliey  and  them,  of  man  and  men,  of  give 
and  gave,  of  sit  and  set,  of  true  and  truth,  of  land  and 
landscape,  though  inflective,  are  dead,  and  we  can  no 
longer^.make  new  forms  by  their  help.  But  to  any  noun 
which  we  import  we  may  add  an  s  for  the  possessive 
and  plural,  as  telegraphs;  from  any  verb  we  can  make 
a  little  scheme  of  inflectional  forms,  as  t ele graph  est . 
telegraphs,  telegraphed  (pret.  and  part.),  telegraphing 
(part,  and  infin.).    Then  we  have  our  suffixes  for  turn- 


CHANGE  OF  ONE  PART  OF  SPEECH  INTO  OTHERS.     131 

ing  a  noun  into  an  adjective,  as  telegraph  icj  a  number  of 
these,  as  ful,  less,  ous,  ish,  y,  are  still  sufficiently  alive 
to  admit  of  practical  application.  Then,  besides  that 
we  can  turn  any  adjective,  on  occasion,  into  a  noun — as 
the  good,  the  beautiful,  and  the  true — we  have  a  suffix 
ness,  of  very  wide  applicability,  for  abstracts.  And  the 
ly  will  convert  almost  any  adjective  into  an  adverb,  as 
telegraphically.  The  verb,  too,  has  its  instruments  of 
mutation:  telegraph,  for  instance,  makes  telegrapher 
and  telegraphist  and  telegraphy.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  are  means  of  turning  nouns  and  adjectives 
into  verbs:  we  say  harden  and  roughen,  and  revolution- 
ize and  demoralize,  and  so  on.  This  last  is  in  all  lan- 
guages the  principal  means  whereby  the  stock  of  verbal 
expression  is  increased,  and  new  starting-points  are  ob- 
tained for  further  development :  such  "  denominative  " 
verbs,  as  they  are  called,  abound  in  every  member  of 
our  family,  in  every  period  of  its  history.  All  depends 
upon  the  power  which  language  has  of  treating  its  stock 
of  formative  elements  in  the  same  way  as  its  more  ma- 
terial elements.  Let  a  certain  modificatory  syllable, 
however  reduced  to  formative  value,  once  come  to  occur 
in  forms  enough  to  get  itself  distinctly  associated  in  the 
minds  of  speakers  with  a  certain  modification  of  mean- 
ing, and  it  is  further  applied  when  that  modification 
needs  to  be  expressed,  just  as  naturally  as  a  connective 
or  an  auxiliary  is  similarly  used.  A  notable  example  of 
how  an  element  of  extraneous  origin  can  come  into  a 
language,  and  by  slow  extension  finally  work  its  way  up 
to  such  a  use,  is  afforded  by  ize  and  ism  and  ist,  which, 
though  ultimately  of  Greek  origin,  and  imported  by  us 
through  the  French,  have  made  themselves  part  of  our 
living  apparatus  of  derivation,  and  are  even  abused,  in 
a  half-artificial  and  affected  way,  by  low  speakers  and 


132    PRODUCTION  OF  NEW  WORDS  AND  FORMS. 

writers,  to  the  formation  of  such  monstrosities  as  walk- 
ist,  hair-cuttist. 

It  is  of  high  importance,  if  we  would  understand 
the  structure  of  any  language,  to  distinguish  its  living 
apparatus  of  inflection  and  derivation  from  that  which 
is  only  recognizable  in  its  older  words  as  having  been 
formerly  alive.  And  it  is  in  great  part  by  the  deaden- 
ing of  such  means  of  multiplication  of  expression  that 
a  language  like  ours  gains  its  peculiar  character,  as 
a  prevailingly  analytical  speech.  Each  tongue  has  its 
own  way  in  this  regard :  the  French  is  poorer  even 
than  English  in  apparatus  of  derivation;  the  Slavonic 
tongues,  as  the  Russian,  are  vastly  richer  than  either 
Germanic  or  Eomanic. 

The  English  retains  a  peculiar  relic  of  its  former 
capacities  as  an  inflective  language,  in  its  power  to  turn 
one  part  of  speech  directly  into  another,  without  using 
any  external  sign  of  the  transfer.  The  tongues  of  our 
family  had  in  old  time  a  formal  means  of  making  "  de- 
nominative "  verbs  out  of  nouns  and  adjectives ;  we 
have  mainly  worn  out  and  lost  the  means,  but  we  make 
the  verbs  almost  more  freely  than  ever:  thus,  to  head 
an  army,  to  foot  a  stocking,  to  hand  a  plate,  to  toe  a 
mark,  to  mind  a  command,  to  eye  a  foe,  to  booh  a  pas- 
senger, to  chair  a  candidate,  to  table  a  resolution,  to 
stone  a  martyr,  to  scalp  an  enemy:  and  so  on  indefi- 
nitely. The  examples  show  that  the  relation  of  the 
action  to  the  conception  expressed  by  the  noun  is  of  the 
greatest  possible  variety,  determined  in  each  case  only 
by  its  known  conditions,  as  apprehended  by  the  mind 
of  speaker  and  hearer.  An  equally  peculiar  capacity  is 
that  of  transmuting  without  ceremony  a  noun  into  an 
adjective :  thus  we  say  a  gold  watch,  while  the  French- 
man must   say   '  a   watch   of  gold,'   and   the   German 


CHANGE  OF  ONE  PART  OF  SPEECH  INTO  OTHERS.     133 

1  a  golden  watch,'  or  else,  by  actual  composition,  '  a  gold- 
watch  ; '  so  also,  a  steam  mill,  as  against  the  French  '  a 
mill  by  steam,'  and  the  German  '  a  steam-mill ; '  so  a 
China  rose;  and  so  on.  This  comes  from  a  relaxation 
of  the  bonds  of  composition;  the  division,  as  it  were, 
of  a  loose  compound  like  gold-mine  into  its  parts,  and 
an  attribution  to  the  name  itself  in  separate  use  of  an 
office  rightfully  belonging  to  it  only  when  it  loses  its  in- 
dependence by  union  with  another.  This  changeableness 
of  office  is  something  very  different  from  the  original 
indefiniteness  of  uninnected  languages.  Our  apprehen- 
sion of  the  different  office  of  verb,  noun,  and  adjective 
is  kept  clear  enough  by  the  numerous  words  which  have 
only  one  and  not  another  of  these  characters;  we  pre- 
serve the  distinction  even  after  abandoning  its  sign ;  and 
thus  have  by  inheritance  more  of  the  power  of  increas- 
ing the  resources  of  expression  than  makes  any  outward 
show  in  our  language. 


CHAPTEE   VIII. 

summary:  the  name-making  process. 

Review  of  the  processes  of  change ;  their  contribution  to  name- 
making.  Degrees  of  reflectiveness  in  name-making.  Ante- 
cedence of  the  conception  to  its  sign ;  illustrations ;  examin- 
ation of  arguments  used  against  this  view.  Sources  of  the  ma- 
terial of  names;  artificiality  of  the  tie  between  name  and  idea. 
Etymological  inquiries ;  character  of  the  reasons  for  names  ; 
a  science  of  morphology.  Force  concerned  in  name-making ; 
the  linguistic  faculty ;  false  views  and  their  grounds  examined. 
Part  taken  by  the  community  in  the  process ;  its  relation  to 
the  action  of  individuals. 

We  have  now  finished  our  compendious  review  of 
the  individual  processes — at  least,  the  leading  ones — of 
which  is  made  up  the  growth  of  languages  like  ours. 
In  order  to  understand  the  historical  movement  of  any 
language  at  a  given  period,  we  need  to  analyze  it  into 
such  parts  as  these,  and  to  see  how,  separately  and  to- 
gether, they  are  working;  to  note  the  kind  and  degree 
of  activity  of  each,  and  trace,  if  possible,  the  causes 
that  determine  their  difference.  In  our  exposition  and 
illustration,  we  have  had  in  view  especially  their  agency 
in  the  recent  and  present  growth  of  English;  and  we 
cannot  spend  the  time,  nor  is  it  necessary,  to  take  any 
more  notice  of  their  different  operation  in  other  lan- 
guages than  we  have  already  incidentally  done,  and 
shall  have  occasion  in  the  same  way  to  do  hereafter. 
134 


CONSCIOUS  NAME-MAKING.  135 

We  go  on,  rather,  to  consider  certain  general  principles, 
mainly  derivable  in  the  way  of  inference  from  the  de- 
tails we  have  had  before  us,  and  bearing  upon  the  gen- 
eral process  of  name-giving,  or  the  provision  of  signs 
for  conceptions.  The  other  departments  of  linguistic 
change,  as  we  have  already  seen,  are  of  comparatively 
subordinate  importance  and  not  difficult  of  explanation ; 
but  to  understand  fully  the  means  whereby  language 
compasses  the  expression  of  whatever  calls  for  expres- 
sion is  to  comprehend  the  essential  nature  of  linguistic 
growth,  and  even  that  of  language  itself. 

We  will  begin  by  noticing  that  a  part  of  the  name- 
giving  process,  at  any  rate,  is  easy  enough  to  under- 
stand; it  goes  on  in  the  broadest  daylight.  When  a 
human  being  is  born  into  the  world,  custom,  founded 
in  convenience,  requires  that  he  have  a  name ;  and  those 
who  are  responsible  for  his  existence  furnish  the  re- 
quired adjunct,  according  to  their  individual  tastes, 
which  are  virtually  a  reflection  of  those  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  they  live.  English-speaking  parents 
do  not  give  a  Chinese  or  a  Sioux  name,  nor  vice  versa; 
the  saint  to  whom  his  natal  or  christening  day  is  sacred, 
a  conspicuous  public  character,  a  relation  from  whom 
expectations  are  entertained,  or  something  else  equally 
unessential,  directs  their  choice;  no  matter  what,  so 
long  as  the  individual  is  named,  and  with  such  a  name 
that  neither  the  community  who  call  him  by  it,  nor  he 
himself  later,  shall  revolt  and  insist  on  another  appella- 
tion. Such  an  act  as  this  may  seem  to  have  little  to  do 
with  general  language;  but  that  depends  upon  circum-" 
stances:  the  proper  name  Julius  has  ended  in  our  call- 
ing a  month  July;  the  nickname  Ccesar  has  given  the 
title  to  the  heads  of  two  great  nations,  Germany  and 
Russia  {Tcaiser,  czar)  ;  the  christening  of  the  baby  Ves- 


136  THE  NAME-MAKING   PROCESS. 

pucci  as  Amerigo  has  led  to  America  and  American. 
So  also  with  a  planet :  Herschel  had  the  naming  of 
Uranus,  and  Leverrier  of  Neptune;  only  they  too  were 
guided  by  the  already  established  usages  of  language 
and  the  consequent  preferences  of  the  community;  the 
name  of  Georgium  sidus,  with  which,  in  the  former 
case,  it  was  unworthily  sought  to  flatter  a  monarch,  was 
frowned  upon,  and  dropped  out  of  sight.  The  discov- 
erers of  the  asteroids  enjoy  the  same  privilege;  and 
under  the  same  conditions.  So  with  all  scientific  dis- 
coverers; they  exercise  a  prerogative,  yet  under  limita- 
tions; they  must  respect  the  prejudices  of  their  fellows, 
and  they  must  prove  their  right  as  nomenclators :  in 
the  scientific  community,  as  every  one  knows,  the  claims 
of  rival  name-makers  are  very  sharply  discussed,  under 
government  of  nicely-established  rules.  So  with  in- 
ventors likewise:  to  each  is  conceded  a  limited  right  to 
give  a  name,  or  to  determine  the  acceptance  of  a  name 
given  by  some  one  else,  to  what  he  has  produced.  Nor 
is  the  case  different  anywhere  in  the  technical  vocabu- 
laries of  art,  of  science,  of  philosophy.  The  metaphy- 
sician who  draws  a  new  distinction  denominates  it; 
he  is  even  allowed — always  with  restrictions — to  recast 
the  whole  vocabulary  of  his  department,  for  his  own 
special  convenience;  and  if  the  other  philosophers  are 
convinced  of  the  usefulness  of  the  change,  they  ratify  it. 

All  this  is  done  under  the  full  review  of  conscious- 
ness. There  is  first  the  apprehension  of  something  as 
calling  for  expression,  or  for  better  expression,  and  then 
the  reaching  out  after,  and  the  obtaining  in  some  way, 
the  means  of  expression. 

But  just  this,  only  with  variety  in  the  degree  of 
consciousness  involved,  is  the  nature  of  the  process  of 
name-making  in  all  its  varieties.    If  it  were  not  so,  Ian- 


THE  IDEA   ANTECEDENT   TO   THE   NAME.      13 7 

guage  would  consist  of  two  discordant  parts,  one  made 
in  this  way,  and  one  in  some  other.  Let  us  consider  it 
a  little  more  particularly,  with  reference  to  some  of  the 
principles  involved. 

First,  there  is  always  and  everywhere  an  antece- 
dency of  the  conception  to  the  expression.  In  common 
phrase,  we  first  have  our  idea,  and  then  get  a  name  for 
it.  This  is  so  palpably  true  of  all  the  more  reflective 
processes  that  no  one  would  think  of  denying  it;  to  do 
so  would  be  to  maintain  that  the  planet,  or  plant,  or 
animal,  could  not  be  found  and  recognized  as  some- 
thing yet  unnamed  until  a  title  had  been  selected  and 
made  ready  for  clapping  upon  it;  that  the  child  could 
not  be  born  until  the  christening  bowl  was  ready.  But 
it  is  equally  true,  only  not  so  palpable,  in  all  the  less 
conscious  acts,  all  the  way  down  the  scale  to  the  most 
instinctive.  The  principle  of  life,  for  example,  was 
called  animus,  '  blowing,'  or  spiritus,  '  breathing/  be- 
cause the  nomenclators  had  a  dim,  to  us  a  wholly  in- 
sufficient, apprehension  of  something  within  the  bodily 
frame,  distinct  from  it,  though  governing  and  direct- 
ing it — something  which  could  come  to  an  end  while 
the  body  continued  in  existence;  and  because  the 
breath  seemed  a  peculiar  manifestation  of  this  some- 
thing, its  stoppage  being  the  most  conspicuous  sign  of 
the  latter's  death:  they  seized  the  expression  for  an 
already  formed  conception  as  undeniably  as  did  the 
anatomist  who,  by  an  equally  bold  figure,  first  applied 
inosculation  to  the  observed  connection  of  the  arteries 
and  veins.  Every  figurative  transfer  which  ever  made 
a  successful  designation  for  some  non-sensible  act  or 
relation,  before  undesignated,  rested  upon  a  previous 
perception  of  analogy  between  the  one  thing  and  the 
other:  no  one  said  apprehend  of  an  idea  until  he  had 
10 


138  TH^  NAME-MAKING  PROCESS. 

felt  the  resemblance  between  the  reaching-out  of  the 
bodily  organs  after  a  physical  object  they  want  to 
handle  and  the  striving  of  the  mental  powers  toward 
a  like  end ;  we  repeat  the  act  when  we  say  "  you  don't 
get  hold  of  my  meaning."  No  one  said  "  a  thought 
strikes  me,"  or  "occurs  to  me"  (i.e.  'runs  against 
me'),  or  "comes  into  my  head"  (German,  fallt  mir 
ein,  'falls  in  to  me'),  except  as  result  of  an  analogy 
which  his  mind  had  discovered  between  the  intellectual 
and  the  physical  action.  When  a  certain  new  shade  of 
red  had  been  produced  by  the  creative  ingenuity  of 
modern  chemistry,  the  next  thing  was  to  give  it  a  name ; 
and  magenta  was  pitched  upon,  by  a  perfectly  conscious 
process,  because  historical  causes  had  at  about  that 
time  given  a  celebrity  to  the  town  Magenta:  the  name 
was  not  a  whit  more  indispensable  to  the  conception 
of  the  color  than,  at  a  period  so  much  more  ancient 
that  we  cannot  get  back  to  it,  the  name  green  had  been 
to  the  conception  of  its  color:  men  said  green  when 
they  had  observed  the  distinction  of  this  from  other  col- 
ors, and  its  especial  appurtenance  to  '  growing '  things. 
And  if  we  were  to  trace  the  etymology  of  any  other 
similar  word,  we  should  find  it  of  the  same  character. 
Nor  is  the  genesis  of  form- words  and  forms  unlike  this. 
Off  was  changed  to  a  (virtual)  sign  of  the  genitive  case, 
and  to  to  an  infinitive  sign,  by  a  long  succession  of 
steps,  each  of  which  was  a  putting  of  the  word  to  a 
use  slightly  different  from  that  which  it  had  served 
before,  in  order  to  answer  a  felt  need  of  expression; 
and  nothing  other  than  this  is  implied  in  the  making 
of  loved,  of  donnerai,  of  arnabam,  of  Bcoaco,  of  asmi 
{am). 

We  might  go  over  the  whole  list  of  illustrations 
given  in  the  preceding  chapters,  and  as  many  more  as 


THE  IDEA  ANTECEDENT  TO  THE  NAME.      139 

we  chose  to  take,  without  finding  a  case  different  from 
these.  The  doctrine  that  a  conception  is  impossible 
without  a  word  to  express  it  is  an  indefensible  paradox 
— indefensible,  that  is  to  say,  except  by  misapprehen- 
sions and  false  arguments.  One  or  two  of  these  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  notice  more  particularly. 

It  is  wont  to  be  assumed  by  those  who  oppose  the 
antecedence  of  the  idea  to  the  sign,  that  this  opinion 
implies  the  elaboration  by  thinkers  of  a  store  of 
thoughts  in  advance,  and  then  the  turning  back  and 
naming  them  by  a  conscious  after-thought.  Here  is  an 
inexcusably  gross  misrepresentation.  There  is  implied, 
rather,  that  each  act  of  nomenclature  is  preceded  by  its 
own  act  of  conception;  the  naming  follows  as  soon  as 
the  call  for  it  is  felt :  even,  it  may  be,  before  the  need 
is  realized ;  the  forward  step  in  mental  action  may  be  so 
small  in  each  particular  case  that  only  after  many  have 
been  taken  in  the  same  direction  is  the  removal  noticed, 
when  reflection  chances  to  be  applied  to  it.  Every  con- 
ceptual act  is  so  immediately  followed  as  to  seem  accom- 
panied by  a  nomenclatory  one.  Or,  an  inkling  of  an 
idea  is  won;  it  floats  obscurely  in  the  mind  of  the  com- 
munity until  some  one  grasps  it  clearly  enough  to  give 
it  a  name;  and  it  at  once  takes  shape  (perhaps  only  a 
delusive  shape),  after  his  example,  in  the  minds  of 
others.  The  immense  gain  in  clearness  of  apprehen- 
sion, in  facility  of  handling,  conferred  upon  a  concep- 
tion by  its  naming,  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  denied: 
only  those  are  in  error  who  would  transform  this  ad- 
vantage into  an  absolute  necessity.  Not  less  is  their 
error  by  whom  the  acknowledged  impossibility  that  the 
mind  should  do  without  language,  the  work  which  it 
actually  does  is  transferred  to  each  single  minute  men- 
tal action.      It  might  just  as  well  be  claimed  that  a 


K 


140  THE  NAME-MAKING   PROCESS. 

man  cannot  ascend  to  the  summit  of  St.  Peter's,  or  go 
from  Rome  to  Constantinople,  because  in  each  case  the 
distance  is  vastly  greater  than  the  length  of  his  legs. 
In  point  of  fact,  he  takes  one  step,  upward  or  onward, 
at  a  time,  and  makes  each  newly-won  position  a  start- 
ing-point for  further  motion;  and  in  this  way  he  can 
go  just  as  far  as  circumstances  and  his  natural  powers 
allow.  Just  so  with  the  mind ;  every  item  of  knowledge 
and  of  self-command  that  it  conquers  it  fixes  in  as- 
sured possession  by  means  of  language ;  and  it  is  always 
reaching  out  for  more  knowledge,  and  gaining  addi- 
tional control  of  its  powers,  and  fixing  them  in  the 
same  way.  It  is,  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen  already, 
always  at  work  under  the  surface  of  speech,  recasting 
and  amending  the  classifications  involved  in  words,  ac- 
quiring new  control  of  conceptions  once  faintly  grasped 
and  awkwardly  wielded,  crowding  new  knowledge  into 
its  old  terms — all,  on  the  whole,  by  and  with  the  help 
of  language,  and  yet  in  each  individual  item  indepen- 
dently of  language :  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  produc- 
tion of  new  signs  that  is  different  from  the  rest.  The 
mind  not  only  remodels  and  sharpens  its  old  instru- 
ments, but  also  makes  its  new  ones  as  it  works  on. 

Again,  in  making  provision  of  expression  for  new 
conceptions,  the  names-giving  faculty  gets  its  material 
simply  where  it  can  most  conveniently,  not  inquiring 
too  curiously  whence  it  comes.  Virtually,  the  object 
aimed  at  is  to  find  a  sign  which  may  henceforth  be 
linked  by  association  closely  to  the  conception,  and  used 
to  represent  it  in  communication  and  in  the  processes 
of  mental  action.  To  attempt  more  than  this  would  be 
useless  indeed,  when  the  tie  by  which  each  individual 
holds  and  uses  his  whole  body  of  expression  is  only  this 
same  one  of  association.    As  we  saw  abundantly  in  the 


VALUE   OP   ETYMOLOGICAL   REASONS.  141 

second  chapter,  the  child  gets  his  words  by  learning 
them  from  others'  lips,  and  connecting  them  with  the 
same  conceptions  that  others  do.  Questions  of  etymol- 
ogy are  naught  to  him,  as  even  the  question  what  lan- 
guage he  shall  acquire  at  all.  But  those  questions  are 
not  really  anything  more  to  the  adult;  nay,  not  even  to 
the  learned  etymologist,  so  far  as  concerns  his  practical 
use  of  speech.  The  most  learned  of  the  guild  can  only 
follow  for  a  brief  distance  backward  the  history  of  most 
words;  and,  near  or  far,  he  comes  to  a  reason  identical 
with  that  of  the  peasant :  "  It  was  the  usage :  "  a  cer- 
tain community,  at  a  certain  time,  used  such  and  such  a 
sign  thus  and  so ;  and  hence,  by  this  and  that  succession 
of  partly  traceable  historical  changes,  our  own  usage 
has  come  to  be  what  it  is.  We  have  had  to  notice  over 
and  over  again,  above,  the  readiness  on  the  part  of 
language-users  to  forget  origins,  to  cast  aside  as  cum- 
brous rubbish  the  etymological  suggestiveness  of  a 
term,  and  concentrate  force  upon  the  new  and  more 
adventitious  tie.  This  is  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
and  valuable  tendencies  in  name-making;  it  consti- 
tutes an  essential  part  of  the  practical  availability  of 
language. 

Even  when  there  is  no  conspicuous  transfer,  when 
the  changes  of  use  are  so  slight  and  gradual  that  each 
new  application  stands  closely  connected  with  its  prede- 
cessor, there  is  no  real  persistency  of  original  value,  and 
the  point  finally  reached  is  often  enough  so  far  off  from 
the  place  of  starting  that  the  one  cannot  be  seen  from 
the  other — as  when,  in  one  of  our  examples  above,  a 
word  (have)  of  which  the  ultimate  radical  idea  is 
'  seize,  grasp,'  has  become  in  one  and  the  same  language 
a  sign  of  possession  in  every  kind,  physical  and  moral, 
and  likewise  of  past  action,  of  future  obligation,  and 


142  THE  NAME-MAKING   PROCESS. 

of  causation.  There  is  nothing  in  the  least  abnormal 
about  such  a  case ;  every  language  has  a  plenty  like  it  to 
show.  But  every  language  has  also  cases  in  abundance 
of  a  more  summary  distant  transfer,  making  the  rea- 
sons that  underlie  the  current  use  of  words  so  trivial  or 
so  preposterous  that,  if  use  were  heedful  of  incongrui- 
ties, the  words  could  not  stand  a  moment.  Two  forms, 
for  example,  of  the  great  forces  that  govern  matter, 
electricity  and  magnetism,  are  named,  the  one  from  a 
Greek  word  for  '  amber,'  the  other  from  an  obscure 
province  of  Thessaly;  merely  because  the  first  electric 
phenomena  observed  by  the  founders  of  our  civilization 
appeared  in  connection  with  the  rubbing  of  a  bit  of 
amber,  and  because  the  stones  that  exhibited  to  them 
the  magnetic  force  came  from  Magnesia.  Galvanism 
seems  more  worthy,  because  there  is  a  certain  propriety 
in  our  honoring. the  man  who  initiated  our  acquaintance 
with  this  department  of  phenomena,;  yet,  after  all,  it  is 
rather  petty  to  link  such  an  element  to  the  name  of  an 
Italian  doctor.  Tragic,  tragedy,  and  all  their  train, 
come,  by  some  tie  of  connection  not  yet  fully  under- 
stood, from  the  Greek  word  for  a  'he-goat; '  comic  and 
comedy,  probably  from  that  for  '  village/  the  same  with 
our  home.  Many  of  the  examples  already  used  in  other 
connections  might  well  be  recalled  here,  as  equally  suit- 
ing our  present  purpose;  but  it  is  surely  unnecessary  to 
go  further;  our  thesis  is  already  sufficiently  proved.  If 
a  direct  and  necessary  tie  had  to  be  established  even  at 
the  outset  between  idea  and  sign,  new  inventions  would 
be  constantly  coming  into  speech,  instead  of  showing 
themselves,  as  at  present,  the  rarest  of  phenomena. 
The  reason  why  we  resort  instead  to  the  store  of  old 
material  is,  like  all  the  rest,  simply  one  of  convenience. 
And  perhaps,  after  all,  the  most  telling  fact  of  wide 


VALUE  OF  ETYMOLOGICAL  REASONS.         143 

range  is  that  the  stores  of  expression  of  a  wholly 
strange  language  are,  when  once  the  way  is  opened, 
drawn  upon  without  stint ;  and  we  English-speakers 
come  to  call  things  innumerable  by  certain  names  for 
the  very  unphilosophical  reason  that  certain  commu- 
nities in  southeastern  Europe,  a  long  time  ago,  called 
things  more  or  less  resembling  these  by  names  some- 
what similar. 

Our  doctrine  must  not  at  all  be  understood  as  imply- 
ing that  there  is  no  reason  why  anything  is  called  as  it  ,  , 
is :  there  is  in  every  case  a  reason ;  only  the  present  use 
of  the  name  is  not  dependent  on  it ;  it  cannot  always  be 
found  out;  and,  if  found,  it  is  grounded  on  conven- 
ience, not  on  necessity  of  any  kind.  It  amounts  to  this : 
the  conception  in  question  is  thus  designated  because 
that  other  was  formerly  so  and  so  designated;  and  the 
same  is  true  of  the  latter  also;  another  earlier  designa- 
tion of  a  more  or  less  kindred  conception  lay  back  of  it 
— and  so  on,  as  far  back  toward  the  beginning  as  our 
limited  vision  can  reach.  Our  tracing  of  the  etymology 
of  a  word  is  the  following-up  of  a  series  of  acts  of 
name-making,  consisting  chiefly  in  the  new  applications 
of  old  material — with  the  accompanying,  but  indepen- 
dent, changes  of  form.  And  every  one  of  those  acts 
was  one  of  choice,  involving  the  free  working  of  the  \/ 
human  will;  only  under  the  government,  as  always  and 
everywhere,  of  conditions  and  motives.  In  order  com- 
pletely to  understand  and  judge  it,  we  need  to  put  our- 
selves precisely  in  the  nomenclator's  place,  apprehending 
just  his  acquired  resources  of  expression  and  his  habits 
of  thought  and  speech  as  founded  on  them ;  realizing 
just  his  insight  of  the  new  conception  and  his  impulse 
to  express  it.  But  this,  of  course,  is  wholly  out  of  our 
power;  the  a  priori  position  is  one  we  can  never  as-  V 


144  THE  NAME-MAKING  PROCESS. 

sume;  we  can  only  deal  with  the  ease  a  posteriori, 
reasoning  back  toward  the  mental  condition  from  the  act 
in  which  it  is  manifested. 

Hence  it  is  evident  in  what  sense  alone  there  can  be 
a  science  of  morphology,  or  of  the  adaptations  and  re- 
adaptations  of  articulate  signs  to  the  uses  and  changes 
of  thought.  As  implying  the  existence  of  necessary 
laws  of  significant  development,  which  are  to  be  traced 
/  out  and  made  to  explain  the  phenomena  underlain  by 

^  them,  no  such  science  is  possible;  as  classifying  and 
arranging  the  infinite  variety  of  actual  facts,  and  point- 
/  ing  out  the  directions  in  which  the  movement  takes  place 
more  than  in  others,  it  has  a  most  useful  work  to  do. 
What  has  been  done  above,  in  the  fifth  chapter,  is  only 
a  beginning;  the  subject  is  one  which  would  reward  a 
deep  and  comprehensive  investigation,  embracing  the 
languages  of  many  or  all  families. 

Once  more,  there  is  nothing  in  the  whole  compli- 
cated process  of  name-making  which  calls  for  the  ad- 
mission of  any  other  efficient  force  than  the  reasonable 

1  action,  the  action  for  a  definable  purpose,  of  the  speakers 
of  language :  their  purpose  being,  as  abundantly  shown 
above,  the  adaptation  of  their  means  of  expression  to 
their  constantly  changing  needs  and  shifting  preferences. 
This  great  and  most  important  institution,  though  car- 
ried forward  from  step  to  step  of  its  existence  in  its 
condition  as  heretefore  existing,  by  the  incessant  process 
of  teaching  and  learning,  is  at  the  same  time  in  no  part 
or  particle  out  of  reach  of  the  altering  action  of  those 
who  learn  and  use  it.  If  convenience  require  that  the 
word  learned  and  hitherto  only  used  in  a  certain  sense 
or  group  of  senses,  and  having  a  certain  form,  be  applied 
to  an  additional  sense,  or  change  its  application  from  the 
old  to  a  new,  and  be  shaped  a  little  differently,  the  thing 


THE  FORCE  AT  WORK.  145 

is  done,  and  no  one  can  hinder  it ;  if  practical  use  is  for 
any  reason  no  longer  served  by  a  word,  it  drops  out  of 
use  and  is  no  more ;  if  practical  need,  again,  call  for  pro- 
vision of  new  expression,  it  is  in  one  way  or  another  ob- 
tained, the  particular  way  depending  on  the  conditions 
of  the  particular  case.  Nor  is  there  any  peculiar  faculty 
of  the  mind,  any  linguistic  instinct,  or  language-sense, 
or  whatever  else  it  may  be  called,  involved  in  the  pro- 
cess ;  this  is  simply  the  exercise  in  a  particular  direction 
of  that  great  and  composite  faculty,  than  which  no  other 
is  more  characteristic  of  human  reason,  the  faculty  of 
adapting  means  to  ends,  of  apprehending  a  desirable 
purpose  and  attaining  it.  It  is  different  only  in  its  acci- 
dents— namely,  the  kind  of  object  aimed  at  and  the 
kind  of  material  used — and  not  in  its  essential  nature, 
from  that  other  process,  not  less  characteristic  of  human 
reason,  the  making  and  using  of  instruments.  No  ex- 
ercises of  reason,  in  fact,  as  we  have  already  once  or 
twice  remarked,  are  so  closely  and  instructively  parallel 
as  these  two. 

This  point  is  obviously  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
and  vital  importance  in  the  philosophy  of  language. 
There  are  those  still  who  hold  that  words  get  them- 
selves attributed  to  things  by  a  kind  of  mysterious 
natural  process,  in  which  men  have  no  part;  that  there 
are  organic  forces  in  speech  itself  which — by  fermenta- 
tion, or  digestion,  or  crystallization,  or  something  of  the 
sort — produce  new  material  and  alter  old.  No  one, 
however,  has  ever  managed,  if  indeed  any  one  has  ever 
attempted,  to  show  these  forces  in  actual  operation,  or 
to  analyze  and  set  forth  their  way  of  working  and  the 
results  it  produces  in  detail,  exhibiting  their  product 
item  by  item.  Take  any  individual  bit  of  linguistic 
growth,  and  it  is  found  and  acknowledged  to  be  the  act 


S 


S 


146  THE  NAME-MAKING  PROCESS. 

of  a  human  being,  working  toward  definable  ends  under 
the  government  of  recognizable  motives,  even  though 
without  any  reflective  consciousness  of  what  he  is  accom- 
plishing: and  it  is  manifestly  absurd  to  recognize  one 
force  in  action  in  the  items  and  another  in  their  sum.y 
If  we  refuse  to  examine  the  items  when  forming  an 
estimate  of  the  force,  and  only  gaze  with  admiration  at 
the  great  whole,  there  is  no  theory  so  false  that  we  may 
not  for  a  time  rest  in  it  with  satisfaction.  But  we 
might  with  the  same  reason  regard  the  pyramids,  in  our 
wonder  at  their  immensity  and  grandeur,  as  great  crys- 
tals, produced  by  the  infinite  organizing  forces  of  Na- 
.  ture,  as  ascribe  language  to  organic  powers  contained 
within  itself;  the  moment  we  come  to  examine  their 
component  parts,  we  find  everywhere  the  marks  of 
human  workmanship;  and  we  ourselves  are  all  the 
time  building  similar  structures,  even  if  not  upon  so 
grand  a  scale  as  the  men  of  old.  The  general  laws  or 
general  tendencies  of  language,  well  enough  called  by 
that  name  if  we  do  not  let  ourselves  be  deceived  by  the 
terms  we  use,  are  really  only  laws  of  human  action,  un- 
der the  joint  guidance  of  habit  and  circumstance.  As 
for  setting  them  up  as  efficient  causes,  that  is  sheer 
mythology;  we  might  as  well  erect  into  forces  the  laws 
which  govern  the  development  of  political  institutions, 
or  the  tendencies  which  in  any  country,  at  a  given 
time,  are  leading  to  the  victory  of  one  party  over  anoth- 
er: it  all  resolves  itself  at  last  into  the  action  of  indi- 
vidual minds,  capable  of  choice,  under  wide-reaching 
motives  and  inducements,  which  are  recognizable  in 
their  general  operations,  though  not  in  the  detail  of 
their  working  upon  each  mind.   \ 

One   great   reason   why   men   are   led   to   deny   the 
agency  of  the  human  will  in  the  changes  of  speech  is 


UNCONSCIOUSNESS  OP  THE  PROCESS.         147 

that  they  see  so  clearly  that  it  does  not  work  consciously 
toward  that  purpose.  No  one  says  to  himself,  or  to 
others :  "  Our  language  is  defective  in  this  and  that  par- 
ticular ;  go  to  now,  and  let  us  change  it ;  "  any  more 
than  he  says :  "  All  things  carefully  considered,  this  par- 
ticular word  in  our  speech  can  well  enough  be  spared; 
let  us  cast  it  out."  The  end  aimed  at — and  not  even 
that  with  full  consciousness — is  the  supply  of  a  need 
of  expression,  or  the  attainment  of  a  more  satis- 
factory expression.  An  exigency  arises,  a  conjuncture 
in  which  the  existing  available  resources  are  not  suf- 
ficient for  the  speaker's  ends;  and,  in  one  or  other  of 
the  various  ways  described  above,  he  adds  to  them  to 
answer  his  present  purpose.  Or  the  opportunity  offers 
itself,  and  is  seized,  for  a  short  cut,  a  new  and  more 
attractive  path,  to  a  point  accessible  enough  in  old  ways. 
A  person  commits  thus  an  addition  to  language  without 
ever  being  aware  of  it;  any  more  than  the  parents  who 
name  their  son  reflect  that  they  are  thus  virtually  mak- 
ing an  addition  to  the  city  directory.  If  he  will  well 
understand  it  to  be  in  this  sense,  every  one  is  welcome 
to  hold  that  alterations  of  speech  are  not  made  by  the 
human  will;  there  is  no  will  to  alter  speech;  there  is 
only  will  to  use  speech  in  a  way  which  is  new;  and  the 
alteration  comes  of  itself  as  a  result.  So  it  was  not  by 
the  exertion  of  his  will  that  the  reptile,  creeping  over 
the  muddy  surface  of  a  Permian  or  Jurassic  shore,  made 
a  record  of  himself  for  the  human  geologist  to  study,  a 
few  million  years  later;  and  yet,  if  he  had  not  volun- 
tarily taken  the  steps,  under  sufficient  inducement,  there 
would  have  been  no  record. 

We  must  not,  indeed,  commit  the  error  of  ascribing 
too  much  consciousness  even  to  the  act  of  satisfying 
the  momentary  impulse  which  produces  the  alteration. 


148  THE  NAME-MAKING   PROCESS. 

Thus,  for  example,  in  phonetic  change.  A  word  is  pro- 
duced by  a  highly  intricate  succession  of  acts  on  the 
part  of  the  vocal  organs;  a  careless  and  unheeded  omis- 
sion of  any  one  of  them  results  in  a  mutilation  of  the 
word,  or  a  slight  relaxation  of  the  energy  of  articulation 
affects  the  character  of  one  of  the  sounds  in  the  com- 
pound; and  as  the  word  answers  its  purpose  just  as 
well  as  before,  it  passes  without  notice,  and  the  act  is 
repeated,  and  becomes  first  customary,  then  constant. 
This  is,  in  fact,  the  normal  method  of  phonetic  cor- 
ruption; yet  no  sensible  person  would  ever  think  of 
recognizing  any  other  agency  at  work  than  the  speaker 
himself,  acting  voluntarily — any  more  than  he  would 
attribute  it  to  some  force  operating  from  outside  if  a 
man,  on  coming  to  a  ditch  which  he  had  been  used  to 
leap  every  day,  should  some  time  put  forth  an  insuf- 
ficient exertion  of  force,  and  should  fall  in.  If  there 
were  penalties  of  this  sort  following  slips  in  utterance, 
the  subject  of  phonetic  change  would  make  but  a  small 
figure  in  our  comparative  grammars.  And  this  is  not 
the  only  way  in  which  careless  or  slovenly  handling  of 
language  leads  to  change.  A  very  large  department  of 
alterations  has  no  other  source,  but  is  due  to  the  omis- 
sion of  distinctions,  the  blunders  of  mistaken  analogy, 
on  the  part  of  those  who  have  not  carefully  studied  and 
do  not  bear  accurately  in  mind  the  proper  uses  of  the 
words  they  employ.  And  yet,  here  just  as  much  as  in 
the  case  of  the  naturalist  who  cons  his  Greek  and  Latin 
dictionaries  in  search  of  a  name  for  a  new  mineral  or 
plant,  the  act  of  change  is  the  work  of  the  speaker,  and 
of  him  alone. 

Another  reason  for  holding  the  false  view  which  we 
are  now  combating  is  that  every  person  is  conscious  of 
his  inability  to  effect  a  change  in  language  by  his  own 


ACTION  OF  THE  COMMUNITY.  149 

authority  and  arbitrarily;  and  what  he  cannot  do,  he  is 
sure  that  nobody  can  do.  And  that  is  true  enough;  in 
a  sense,  it  is  not  the  individual,  but  the  community,  that 
makes  and  changes  language.  We  must  be  careful, 
however,  to  see  clearly  in  what  sense,  lest  we  fail  sig- 
nally to  understand  the  subject  we  are  examining. 
There  is  implied  here  a  point  of  high  importance  in 
linguistic  philosophy,  one  which  we  have  already  had 
more  or  less  in  view,  but  have  not  taken  up  for  direct 
consideration :  namely,  the  part  which  the  community 
of  speakers,  as  distinguished  from  the  individual  speak- 
er, have  to  play  in  language-making. 

The  community's  share  in  the  work  is  dependent 
on  and  conditioned  by  the  simple  fact  that  language  is 
not  an  individual  possession,  but  a  social.  It  exists  (as 
we  shall  notice  more  particularly  in  the  fourteenth  chap- 
ter), not  only  partly,  but  primarily,  for  the  purpose  of 
communication;  its  other  uses  come  after  and  in  the 
train  of  this.  To  the  great  mass  of  its  speakers,  it  exists 
consciously  for  communication  alone;  this  is  the  use 
that  exhibits  and  commends  itself  to  every  mind.  That 
would  have  no  right  to  be  called  a  language  which  only 
one  person  understood  and  could  use;  and  there  is  not, 
nor  has  ever  been,  any  such  in  existence.  Acceptance 
by  some  community,  though  but  a  limited  one,  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  in  order  to  convert  any  one's  utterances 
into  speech.  Hence  arise  the  influences  which  guide 
and  restrain  individual  action  on  language.  In  the  first 
place,  an  individual's  alterations  and  additions,  if  not 
adopted  by  others  and  kept  up  in  their  tradition,  die 
with  him,  and  never  come  to  light  at  all.  But  again, 
even  if  he  were  careless  of  offending  the  prejudices  or 
shocking  the  taste  of  his  fellows,  he  would  not,  at  any 
rate,  pass  the  limit  of  being  intelligible  to  them;  and 


t/ 


150  THE  NAME-MAKING   PROCESS. 

this  would  be  by  itself  a  powerful  brake  to  check  his 
arbitrary  action.  But  such  a  brake  is  unnecessary,  be- 
cause, in  the  third  place,  each  individual  feels,  in  the 
main,  the  governing  force  of  the  same  motives  which 
sway  the  minds  of  his  fellows.  He  does  not  himself 
incline,  any  more  than  they  would  incline  to  allow  him, 
to  abandon  the  established  habits  of  speech  and  go  off 
upon  a  tangent,  toward  some  new  and  strange  mode  of 
expression.  Everything  in  language  goes  by  analogy; 
what  a  language  is  in  the  habit  of  doing,  it  can  do,  but 
nothing  else;  and  habits  are  of  very  slow  growth;  a  lost 
habit  cannot  be  revived;  a  new  one  cannot  be  formed 
except  gradually,  and  almost  or  quite  unconsciously. 
And  the  reason  of  this  lies  in  the  common  preferences 
of  the  speakers.  We  signify  the  fact  popularly  by  say- 
ing that  such  and  such  a  thing  is  opposed  to  the  "  genius 
of  the  language ;  "  but  that  is  merely  a  mythological 
term;  the  German  calls  the  same  thing  the  Sprach- 
gefuhl,  '  speech-feeling,'  or  '  linguistic  instinct : '  both 
are  expressions  of  a  convenient  dimness,  under  which 
inexact  thinkers  often  hide  an  abundance  of  indefinite 
or  erroneous  conceptions.  What  is  really  meant  is  the 
sum,  or  resultant,  of  the  preferences  of  the  language- 
users,  as  determined  by  the  already  existing  material 
and  usages  of  their  speech;  outside  of  certain  narrow 
limits  of  variation,  they  are  not  themselves  tempted  to 
suggest,  nor  will  they  ratify  and  accept  as  suggested  by 
any  one,  new  meanings,  new  phrases,  new  words. 

Our  recognition  of  the  community  as  final  tribunal 
which  decides  whether  anything  shall  be  language  or 
not,  does  not,  then,  in  the  least  contravene  what  has 
been  claimed  above  respecting  individual  agency.  Some 
one  must  lead  the  way  for  the  rest  to  follow ;  if  they  do 
not  follow,  he  falls  back  or  stands  alone.    The  commu- 


VARIOUS  ORIGINS   OF   ONE   WORD.  151 

nity  cannot  act  save  by  the  initiative  of  its  single  mem-  f 
bers;  they  can  accomplish  nothing  save  by  its  coopera- 
tion. Every  new  item  in  speech  has  its  own  time  and  , 
occasion  and  place  of  origination;  it  spreads  from  one 
to  another  until  it  wins  general  currency,  or  else  it  is 
stifled  by  general  neglect.  Only,  of  course,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  every  single  change  should  start  from  a 
single  point.  There  are  some  toward  which  the  general 
mind  so  distinctly  inclines,  which  lie  so  close  outside  of 
and  within  reach  from  the  present  boundaries  of  usage, 
that  they  are  made  independently  by  many  persons,  in 
many  places,  and  thus  have  a  variety  of  starting-points 
from  which  to  strive  after  currency.  Probably  it  was 
thus  with  its,  when,  two  or  three  centuries  ago,  it  was 
crowded  into  English  speech,  against  the  outspoken 
opposition  of  educated  and  "  correct  "  speakers,  by  the 
force  of  its  apparent  analogy  with  the  general  store  of 
English  possessives;  probably  the  same  was  the  case 
with  is  being  done,  the  corresponding  passive  form  to 
the  continuous  active  is  doing,  as  is  done  corresponds  to 
does — a  phrase  which,  against  a  like  opposition,  has  not 
yet  made  its  place  entirely  good  in  the  best  English 
usage.  Phonetic  changes  are  especially  likely  to  be  thus 
general,  instead  of  solitarily  individual,  in  their  origin. 
A  very  notable  example  is  seen  in  the  Germanic  um- 
laut, or  modification  of  vowel  (see  above,  p.  71) ;  which, 
since  it  is  wanting  in  the  Gothic,  cannot  have  belonged 
to  the  Germanic  branches  before  their  separation,  but 
was  later  developed  independently  in  the  High-German, 
the  Low-German,  and  the  Scandinavian  dialects,  doubt- 
less as  the  final  and  accordant  working-out  of  habits  of 
utterance  which  were  already  present  in  the  unitary 
Germanic  dialect. 

Having   thus   recognized  the   nature   of   the   force 


152  THE  NAME-MAKING  PROCESS. 

which,  notwithstanding  the  strictness  of  linguistic  tra- 
dition, is  all  the  time  altering  the  traditionary  material, 
and  seen  in  what  ways  and  under  what  inducements  it 
acts,  we  have  next  to  view  the  same  force,  in  the  same 
modes  of  action,  as  causing  not  only  the  variation  of  a 
single  language  from  age  to  age  of  its  existence,  but 
also,  under  the  government  of  external  circumstances, 
its  variation  in  space,  its  divarication  into  dialects. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

LOCAL   AND   CLASS   VARIATION    OF   LANGUAGE:    DIALECTS. 

Dialectic  differences  within  the  limits  of  a  single  language  ;  indi- 
vidual, class,  and  local  peculiarities  of  speech.  What  makes 
a  language  one.  Influences  favoring  or  restraining  dialectic 
differences;  effect  of  culture.  Illustration:  Germanic  lan- 
guage-history; Romanic.  Centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces; 
separate  growth  causes  dialectic  division  ;  examples.  Verbal 
correspondences  prove  common  descent  of  words  and  lan- 
guages ;  cautions  as  to  applying  this  principle.  Degrees  of 
relationship.  Constitution  of  Indo-European  family  and  evi- 
dences of  its  unity.  Universality  of  families  and  dialectic  re- 
lations.    Relation  of  terms  "  language  "  and  "  dialect." 

Our  inquiries  into  the  phenomena  of  speech  have 
thus  far  shown  us  that  the  mass  of  each  one's  language 
is  acquired  by  him  by  a  process  of  learning,  of  direct 
acquisition  of  what  is  put  before  his  mind  by  others; 
that,  however,  each  one  is  at  the  same  time  a  partner  v 
in  the  work  of  changing  the  language :  contributing,  in- 
deed, only  an  infinitesimal  quota  toward  it,  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  his  importance  in  the  aggregate  of  speakers 
by  whom  the  language  is  kept  in  existence,  yet  doing 
his  part  in  a  sum  which  is  all  made  up  of  such  infinitesi- 
mal parts,  and  would  not  exist  without  them.  The  tra- 
dition of  speech  is  carried  on  by  him  and  such  as  he  is ;  , ,, 
its  modification  is  due  to  no  other  agency.  Every  item 
of  difference  between  new  speech  and  old,  whether  in 
11  153 


154  DIALECTIC   VARIATION. 

the  way  of  alteration  or  of  addition,  has  its  separate  ori- 
gin, beginning  in  the  usage  of  individuals,  and  spread- 
ing and  seeking  that  wider  acceptance  which  alone 
makes  language  of  it;  and  it  has  its  time  of  probation, 
during  which  it  is  trying  to  establish  itself. 

But  if  this  is  true,  then  there  must  be  in  every  exist- 
ing language,  at  any  time,  processes  of  differentiation 
not  yet  fully  carried  out,  words  and  forms  of  words  in 
a  state  of  transition,  altering  but  not  altered ;  words  and 
phrases  under  trial,  introduced  but  not  general;  words 
obsolescent  but  not  yet  obsolete;  old  modes  of  pronun- 
ciation beginning  to  seem  strange  and  affected,  new 
modes  coming  into  vogue — and  so  on,  through  the  whole 
catalogue  of  possible  linguistic  changes. 

And  this  is,  in  fact,  precisely  the  state  of  things,  in 
every  language  under  the  sun:  a  state  of  things  only 
explainable  by  the  causes  which  we  have  been  consider- 
ing. It  exists  even  in  our  own  speech;  although  here, 
for  reasons  to  be  presently  adverted  to,  the  conditions 
are  more  opposed  to  it  than  almost  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  overrate  the  uni- 
formity of  existing  languages;  it  is  far  enough  from 
being  absolute.  In  a  true  and  defensible  sense,  every 
individual  speaks  a  language  different  from  every  other. 
The  capacities  and  the  opportunities  of  each  have  been 
such  that  he  has  acquired  command  of  a  part  of  English 
speech  not  precisely  identical  with  any  one  else's :  the 
peculiarity  may  be  slight,  but  it  is  certainly  there. 
Then,  what  is  yet  more  obvious  and  yet  more  impor- 
tant, the  form  of  each  one's  conceptions,  represented  by 
his  use  of  words,  is  different  from  any  other  person's; 
all  his  individuality  of  character,  of  knowledge  educa- 
tion, feeling,  enters  into  this  difference.  And  yet 
again,  few  if  any  escape  the  taint  of  local  and  personal 


INDIVIDUAL   AND   CLASS   VARIATIONS.        155 

peculiarities  of  pronunciation  and  phraseology,  peculiar- 
ities which,  because  more  conspicuous  than  the  others, 
are  more  often  noticed  by  us  and  called  dialectic.  This 
last  shades  off  into  the  more  wide-spread  and  deeper 
differences  of  district  and  class;  every  separate  part  of 
a  great  country  of  one  speech  has  its  local  form,  more 
or  less  strongly  marked — even  where,  as  in  America, 
there  are  no  old  inherited  dialects,  of  long  standing, 
such  as  prevail  in  Britain,  in  Germany,  in  France:  in 
short,  almost  everywhere.  Every  class,  however  con- 
stituted, has  its  dialectic  differences :  so,  especially,  the 
classes  determined  by  occupation;  each  trade,  calling, 
profession,  department  of  study,  has  its  technical  vocab- 
ulary, its  words  and  phrases  unintelligible  to  outsiders; 
the  carpenter,  the  iron-maker,  the  machinist,  the  miner, 
not  less  than  the  physician,  the  geologist,  or  the  meta- 
physician, has  occasion  every  day  to  say  many  things 
which  would  not  be  understood  by  a  man  of  any  of  the 
other  classes  mentioned,  if  not  exceptionally  well-in- 
formed. Then  there  are  the  differences  in  grade  of 
education;  the  highly  cultivated  have  a  diction  which 
is  not  in  all  its  parts  at  the  command  of  the  vulgar; 
they  have  hosts  of  names  for  objects  and  ideas  of  edu- 
cated knowledge,  which  (like  dahlia,  petroleum,  tele- 
graph, instanced  above)  may  perhaps  some  time  work 
their  way  down  into  the  lower  rank,  becoming  uni- 
versal, like  is  and  head,  and  long  and  short,  instead  of 
class- words  only;  and,  yet  more  especially,  the  uncul- 
tivated have  current  in  their  dialect  a  host  of  inaccu- 
racies, offenses  against  the  correctness  of  speech — as 
ungrammatical  forms,  mispronunciations,  blunders  of 
application,  slang  words,  vulgarities;  all  of  these,  per- 
haps, analogous  with  alterations  which  the  cultivated 
speech,  as  compared  with  its  predecessors,  has  under- 


156  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

gone,  and  some  of  them  destined  to  become  at  a  future 
time  the  established  usage  of  the  whole  language;  but 
as  yet  kept  down  in  the  category  of  errors  by  the  re- 
sistance of  the  higher  classes  to  their  acceptance  and 
use.  Finally,  there  are  the  differences  of  age:  the  nur- 
sery, in  particular,  has  its  dialect,  offensive  to  the  ears  of 
old  bachelors;  and  older  children  have  their  language 
at  least  characterized  by  limited  vocabulary. 

Every  one  of  all  these  differences  is  essentially  dia- 
lectic: that  is  to  say,  they  differ  not  at  all  in  kind,  but 
only  in  degree,  from  those  which  hold  apart  acknowl- 
edged dialects.  They  all  fall,  as  regards  their  origin, 
under  the  classes  of  change  already  laid  down :  they  are 
deviations  from  a  former  standard  of  speech  which  have 
hitherto  acquired  only  a  partial  currency,  within  the 
limits  of  a  class  or  district ;  or  they  are  retentions  of  a 
former  standard,  which  the  generality  of  good  speakers 
have  now  abandoned.  In  illustration  of  this  latter 
class,  we  may  note  in  passing  that  no  small  number  of 
what  the  English  stigmatize  as  Americanisms  are  cases 
of  survival  from  former  good  usage,  and  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  much  of  what  we  regard  as  the  peculiarities 
of  Irish  pronunciation  is  also  old  English,  more  faith- 
fully preserved  by  the  Irish  than  by  the  more  native 
speakers.  Of  course,  it  is  as  wrong  to  be  lagging  in  the 
rear  of  the  great  moving  body  of  the  usages  of  a  lan- 
guage as  to  be  rushing  on  in  advance,  or  flying  off  to 
one  side.  When  the  speech  of  the  best  speakers  changes, 
those  who  do  not  conform  have  to  be  ranked  in  a  lower 
class. 

And  yet,  despite  all  these  varieties,  the  language  is 
one;  and  one  for  the  simple  reason  that,  though  the 
various  individuals  who  speak  it  may  talk  so  as  to  be 
unintelligible  to  one  another,  they  may  also,  on  matters 


VARIATION  WITHIN  A  LANGUAGE.  15? 

of  the  most  familiar  common  interest,  understand  one 
another.  As  the  direct  object  of  language  is  communi- 
cation, the  possibility  of  communication  makes  the  unity 
of  a  language.  No  one  can  define,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  that  term,  a  language ;  for  it  is  a  great  concrete  insti- 
tution, a  body  of  usages  prevailing  in  a  certain  commu- 
nity, and  it  can  only  be  shown  and  described.  You 
have  it  in  its  dictionary,  you  have  it  in  its  grammar ;  as 
also,  in  the  material  and  usages  which  never  get  into 
either  dictionary  or  grammar;  and  you  can  trace  the 
geographical  limits  within  which  it  is  used,  in  all  its 
varieties. 

It  is  an  obvious  corollary  from  the  view  we  have 
taken  of  the  forces  governing  the  growth  of  language, 
and  of  the  way  in  which  they  act,  that  the  gwasi-dialectic 
discordances  existing  within  the  limits  of  the  same  lan- 
guage in  the  same  community  will  be  greatest  where 
the  separation  of  classes  and  sections  is  greatest.  The 
necessity  of  communication  is  the  restraint  upon  the 
alterative  processes,  and  communication  is  the  means 
whereby  any  alteration  actually  made  is  adopted  by 
all :  whatever,  then,  makes  communication  most  lively 
and  penetrating,  through  all  regions  and  all  ranks,  will 
tend  to  preserve  the  unity  of  speech  most  strictly 
through  the  whole  community.  On  the  other  hand, 
all  that  dulls  the  forces  of  communication,  and  lets  a 
people  break  up  into  tribes,  or  into  widely-sundered 
castes  or  classes,  tends  to  increase  the  discordance  of  the 
forms  comprehended  together  in  the  general  language. 

Different  causes  exert  in  this  way  a  different  influ- 
ence. On  the  one  hand,  in  a  barbarous  condition  of 
society  the  discordances  of  class  and  occupation  are  at 
their  lowest.  All  members  of  the  same  community 
stand  substantially  upon  the  same  level;  with  but  in- 


158  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

significant  exceptions,  they  have  the  same  knowledge, 
the  same  skill,  the  same  habits;  the  collective  wealth  of 
thought  and  its  expression  is  not  too  great  for  each  per- 
son to  grasp  and  wield  the  whole  of  it.  On  the  "other 
hand,  local  differences  are  at  their  highest  point,  since 
it  is  only  civilization  and  culture  that  can  bind  together 
into  one  the  parts  of  a  great  community.  The  influ- 
ences of  barbarism,  beyond  narrow  limits,  are  prevail- 
ingly segregative;  a  wild  race  that  multiplies  and 
spreads  widely  breaks  up  into  mutually  jealous  and  hos- 
tile divisions,  with  each  of  which  linguistic  changes 
run  their  own  independent  course.  Every  element  of 
culture  that  finds  its  way  in  exercises  a  conservative  in- 
fluence, tending  both  to  preserve  the  language  from 
change  and  to  preserve  its  unity  throughout  the  terri- 
tory it  occupies.  The  rise  of  a  national  feeling  of  so 
high  an  order  that  it  reverences  the  deeds  and  the  words 
of  past  generations,  and  leads  to  the  production  of  a 
national  literature,  is  obviously  conservative,  because  it 
amounts  to  setting  up  a  norm  of  correct  speech,  by 
which  men's  minds  shall  be  influenced  in  judging,  for 
acceptance  or  rejection,  the  individual  proposals  of 
change.  A  written  literature,  the  habit  of  recording 
and  reading,  the  prevalence  of  actual  instruction,  work 
yet  more  powerfully  in  the  same  direction;  and  when 
such  forces  have  reached  the  degree  of  strength  which 
they  show  in  our  modern  enlightened  communities, 
they  fairly  dominate  the  history  of  speech.  The  lan- 
guage is  stabilized,  especially  as  regards  all  those  altera- 
tions which  proceed  from  inaccuracy;  local  differences 
are  not  only  restrained  from  arising,  but  are  even  wiped 
out,  so  far  as  the  effect  of  education  extends.  There  is 
also  a  state  of  things  intermediate  between  the  two  ex- 
tremes of  barbarism  and  all-pervading  culture :  namely, 


LEARNED  AND  POPULAR  LANGUAGE.         159 

where  there  is  culture  which  reaches  only  a  particular 
class,  a  minority,  of  the  community,  its  conserving  influ- 
ences being  mainly  limited  to  that  class.  This  alone 
possesses  the  records  of  the  language,  and,  using  them 
as  models,  propagates  its  speech  nearly  unaltered,  while 
the  language  of  the  mass  goes  on  changing  unchecked.  s 
There  comes  thus  to  be  a  separation  of  the  originally 
unitary  speech  into  two  parts:  a  learned  dialect,  which 
is  the  old  common  language  preserved,  and  a  popular 
dialect,  which  is  its  altered  descendant;  and  the  latter, 
perhaps,  finally  crowds  the  former  out  of  existence,  and 
becomes,  in  its  turn,  the  cultivated  speech  of  a  new 
order  of  things.  Such  has  been,  for  example,  the  his- 
tory of  the  Latin,  and  of  the  later  dialects  descended 
from  it,  and  now  become  the  vehicles  of  great  and  noble 
literatures;  such,  also,  that  of  the  now  cultivated  lan- 
guages of  modern  Aryan  India,  in  their  relations  to  the 
Sanskrit. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  there  is  a  definite  com- 
munity X,  of  one  speech.  It  is  divided — not,  of  course, 
by  definite  or  fixed  lines — into  the  various  local  parts 
A,  B,  C,  etc.,  and  into  the  classes,  whether  social,  voca- 
tional, or  educational,  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  and  a,  b,  c,  etc. ; 
the  various  divisions  variously  overlapping  and  overly- 
ing one  another.  The  common  speech  is,  like  all  living 
speech,  in  a  condition  of  constant  growth  and  change; 
this  change  being  possible,  and  actually  occurring,  only 
by  such  acts  of  alteration  as  we  have  considered  in  de- 
tail above,  each  arising  at  a  point  or  points  in  one  or 
more  divisions,  and  spreading  thence  by  communication 
to  the  rest.  What  arises  thus  in  A,  or  B,  or  C,  becomes 
at  length  the  possession  of  all — if,  indeed,  it  does  not 
continue  within  certain  limits,  as  a  merely  local  dialectic 
word  or  mode  of  expression.     So  what  arises  in  A  or  a 


160  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

goes  through  the  rest — unless  it  remain  within  the  boun- 
daries of  a  class,  as  a  technical  term,  a  high-caste  ex- 
pression, a  popular  blunder  or  vulgarism,  or  something 
of  the  sort.  And  the  amount  and  value  of  these  vari- 
ous residua,  constituting  the  minor  discordances  which 
may  consist  with  general  agreement  and  unity,  is  vari- 
ous according  to  such  determining  circumstances  as  we 
reviewed  briefly  in  the  paragraph  next  preceding:  no 
language  is  or  can  be  without  them,  but  they  are  very 
different  in  different  languages. 

This  whole  state  of  things  is  dependent  on  his- 
torical conditions,  as  concerns  its  continuance  and 
changes.  Let  us  take  our  hypothetical  case  to  represent 
the  German  language  as  it  was  at  and  after  the  be- 
ginning of  our  era.  Here,  while  the  divisions  of  class 
and  occupation  were  comparatively  unimportant,  those 
of  locality,  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  were  very  marked :  so  much 
so,  indeed,  as  to  make  it  improper  to  speak  of  the 
whole  as  one  language;  besides  innumerable  minor  dis- 
cordances, there  were  sections  the  speech  of  each  of 
which  was  not  intelligible  to  the  rest;  and  if  no  new 
force  had  been  introduced,  things  might  have  gone  on 
thus  to  the  end  of  time,  the  local  discordances  constant- 
ly deepening  and  widening.  But  a  new  and  controlling 
force  was  introduced:  that  of  Greco-Roman,  soon  to 
become  European,  civilization:  this  led  the  way  to  in- 
stitutional and  political  unity.  But  not  for  a  long  time 
did  it  win  the  predominance  in  the  domain  of  language. 
At  first,  each  local  division  had  its  own  separate  culture ; 
the  beginnings  of  literature  were  produced,  and  are  in 
part  still  extant,  in  one  and  another  local  form  of  speech, 
fully  intelligible  only  within  limits.  But  at  length, 
early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  fullness  of  time  was 
come;  political  and  educational  conditions  had  reached 


GERMAN  LANGUAGE.  161 

a  point  where  a  movement  toward  an  educated — and  so, 
in  a  certain  sense,  an  artificial — unity  of  speech  could 
he  made  with  success.  A  certain  local  form  of  speech, 
A — which,  to  be  sure,  had  already  gained  a  degree  of 
currency  as  a  class-form  also — was  definitely  adopted 
by  the  educated  as  their  dialect,  A,  the  style  of  German 
which  should  thenceforth  alone  be  written,  and  looked 
up  to  as  a  model,  and  taught  in  the  schools.  And  its 
authority  has  ever  since  gone  on  increasing,  with  the 
extension  of  the  power  of  civilization  and  education,  till 
now  an  outsider  almost  looks  upon  it  as  the  sole  German 
speech.  That,  however,  it  is  far  enough  from  being;  it 
is  still  only  A,  the  German  of  a  class,  though  of  a  class 
which  the  conditions  of  modern  civilization  have  made 
the  dominant  and  the  growing  one.  B,  C,  and  D,  etc., 
still  subsist;  there  are  whole  regions  of  Germany  where 
the  local  dialect  is  unintelligible  to  him  who  is  versed 
only  in  the  literary  language;  but  they  divide  among 
them,  for  the  most  part,  only  the  classes  of  lower  educa- 
tion, E  and  F,  etc. ;  and  they,  as  well  as  the  classes  of 
vocation,  a  and  b  and  c,  etc.,  feel  profoundly  and  in 
various  ways  the  influence  of  the  learned  speech,  A 
is  the  predominant  speech,  modifying  and  shaping  every- 
thing else  in  German  usage,  and  even  promising,  if  the 
forces  of  education  should  ever  attain  that  overwhelm- 
ing degree  of  importance,  to  sweep  out  of  existence  all 
the  other  varieties,  save  those  of  occupation. 

Xot,  however,  as  we  must  next  notice,  over  the 
whole  territory  occupied  by  High  or  Low  German 
tribes.  There  were  at  least  two  local  varieties — we  may 
call  them  E  and  F — which  did  not  fall  under  the  unify- 
ing influences  that  brought  all  the  rest  within  the  do- 
minion of  A.  One,  E,  the  English,  was  cut  off  by  dis- 
tance and  inaccessibility,  and  consequent  independence. 


162  dialectic  variation. 

The  Germanic  Angles  and  Saxons,  who  carried  a  Ger- 
man dialect  across  the  North  Sea  into  Britain,  and  with 
it  displaced  the  old  Celtic  speech,  have  passed,  in  their 
separateness,  through  a  scries  of  changes  analogous  with 
those  of  their  former  fellow-countrymen.  Their  own 
secondary  divisions,  of  whatever  kind — whether  local,  as 
E',  E",  E'",  etc.,  or  of  class,  as  E' ,  E",  etc. — have  been 
in  a  similar  manner  brought  under  the  controlling  influ- 
ence of  another  literary  dialect,  of  like  origin  with  that 
of  Germany.  And  in  the  northeastern  district  of  con- 
tinental Germany,  the  Netherlands,  political  indepen- 
dence, with  the  consequent  isolation  of  general  interests, 
had  a  kindred  result;  while  the  rest  of  Low  Germany, 
speaking  by  local  division  forms  of  German  speech  not 
less  peculiar  than  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  Dutch, 
uses  the  High-German  literary  dialect  as  its  learned 
speech,  the  corner  Holland  and  the  colony  England  have 
given  an  equivalent  literary  value  to  their  separate  Low- 
German  dialects.  No  matter  how  the  local  varieties 
A  and  B  and  C  become  separated,  so  that  what  passes 
in  each  is  not  participated  in  by  the  others,  their  de- 
velopment will  take  a  different  course,  and  they  will  in 
time  become  separate  tongues. 

The  same  forces,  in  like  modes  of  action,  but  with 
abundant  differences  of  detail,  are  seen  at  work  in  pro- 
ducing the  modern  Eomanic  languages,  descendants  of 
the  Latin.  When  the  arms  and  civilization  and  polity 
of  Rome  carried  her  speech  all  through  Italy,  and  over 
great  regions  outside  of  Italy,  it  was  already  divided  by 
education  into  class-varieties.  All  were  transmitted  to- 
gether; and  the  learned  dialect — A,  as  we  may  call  it, 
in  accordance  with  our  use  of  this  sign  above — has  been 
kept  up  in  its  complete  purity  even  to  the  present  day, 
by  appropriate  and  adequate  means,  though  in  a  con- 


ROMANIC  LANGUAGE.  10,3 

stantly  diminishing  class.  The  lower  forms  of  speech, 
B,  C,  etc.,  had  their  full  influence  in  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  the  new  history.  The  changes  of  Latin  went 
on,  all  the  more  rapidly  for  its  having  passed  into  the 
keeping  of  races  who  had  learned  it  at  second  hand,  hy 
an  outside  pressure;  and,  as  the  forces  of  communica- 
tion were  very  far  from  being  sufficient  to  keep  the 
immensely  extended  community  one,  it  broke  up,  by 
differentiation  within  geographical  limits,  into  a  corre- 
spondingly numerous  array  of  local  forms,  for  which  it 
would  take  several  alphabets  to  provide  sufficient  sym- 
bols; and  historical  circumstances,  which  in  their  main 
character  and  influence  admit  of  being  distinctly  pointed 
out,  led  to  one  here  and  another  there — as  C,  and  F, 
and  I,  and  P,  and  S,  and  W — being  adopted  as  the 
learned  dialects  of  great  regions,  and  used  for  literary 
and  educational  purposes,  not  only  by  their  own  native 
speakers,  but  also  by  those  of  the  rest — which,  like  the 
German  dialects,  still  subsist  as  the  uneducated  patois 
each  of  its  own  district. 

It  would  be  very  easy  to  push  this  illustration  in- 
definitely, but  to  carry  it  further  is  quite  needless.  The 
methods  of  linguistic  change  detailed  above,  and  gov- 
erned in  their  historical  workings  by  the  antithesis  be- 
tween the  initiatory  action  of  the  individual,  and  the 
regulating  action  of  the  community  in  accepting  or  re- 
jecting his  proposals — this  has  been  all  we  have  needed 
to  explain  the  historical  phenomena  instanced ;  and  this, 
and  this  only,  is  sufficient  to  explain  all  the  rest.  It 
may  be  fairly  and  confidently  claimed  that  there  is  no 
known  case  which  cannot  thus  be  solved.  Individuals 
are  the  diversifying  or  centrifugal  force  in  the  growth 
of  speech;  for,  as  there  are  no  two  persons  absolutely 
alike  in  countenance,  so  there  are  no  two  identical  in 


164  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

character  and  education,  and  the  shaping  influence  ex- 
erted by  each  on  the  speech  he  has  learned  will  be 
slightly  different  from  that  of  every  one  else.  But  just 
so  far  as  communication  extends,  like  the  centripetal 
force,  which  dominates  the  other,  and  keeps  the  moving 
body  upon  a  certain  track  never  too  far  remote  from  the 
centre,  the  individualities  are  curbed  and  restrained,  and 
their  jarring  action  forced  into  and  held  in  accordance. 
Or,  in  terms  of  our  recent  hypothesis,  just  so  long  as 
every  change  which  arises  in  the  local  parts  A  and  B 
and  C,  and  so  on,  works  its  way  through  all  the  rest, 
passing  the  ordeal  of  their  acceptance  or  rejection,  so 
long  will  the  language  X  remain  one.  It  may  and  will 
alter  from  age  to  age;  it  may  even  become  so  changed 
in  two  or  three  centuries  (as  English  has  actually  be- 
come in  a  thousand  years)  that  its  speakers  at  one  and 
the  other  end  of  that  period  would  not,  if  they  could  be 
brought  together,  understand  one  another  at  all;  yet, 
at  every  period,  all  the  community  would  understand 
each  other,  because  it  would  have  changed  alike  in  the 
minds  and  mouths  of  all.  But  separate,  in  any  way  you 
please,  the  parts  A  and  B  and  C  from  one  another,  so 
that  the  changes  in  each  are  made  in  that  alone,  and  do 
not  extend  into  the  rest,  and  the  peculiarities  of  each 
will  begin  to  be  confined  to  itself;  what  we  call  dialectic 
growth  will  set  in;  the  process  of  divarication  into 
diverse  languages  will  have  begun.  A  brick  wall,  high 
enough  and  long  enough,  between  the  sections,  would 
perfectly  accomplish  their  division,  and  initiate  dialectic 
divergence ;  only,  of  course,  if  the  separation  takes  place 
by  local  removal,  so  that  the  sections  are  brought  into 
different  external  circumstances  of  nature  and  occupa- 
tion, and  under  different  historical  influences,  the  pro- 
cess of  linguistic  divergence  will  be  quickened. 


INCREASING  DIVARICATION.  165 

This  cutting  off,  by  cessation  of  communication,  of 
a  common  regulative  influence  over  the  never-ending 
changes  of  speech,  may  seem  a  very  slight  cause  of  di- 
vergence; and  so  in  truth  it  is;  but  it  is  fully  sufficient 
to  account  for  all  the  phenomena  of  dialectic  growth. 
ISTo  matter  how  small  the  angle  may  be  between  two 
lines  starting  from  the  same  point ;  if  they  are  protract- 
ed far  enough,  their  extremities  may  be  found  any  given 
distance  apart.  And  the  angle  of  dialectic  divergence 
is  practically  an  increasing  one;  the  two  lines  of  devel- 
opment curve  asunder.  At  the  outset,  namely,  the 
sum  of  guiding  analogies  in  each  is  almost  precisely  the 
same;  identity  of  material,  and  of  habits  of  its  use,  is, 
as  it  were,  a  continuance  of  the  common  momentum,  car- 
rying the  two  on  in  almost  the  same  direction ;  and  inde- 
pendent accordant  results  of  this  community  of  original 
habit  may,  as  we  have  more  than  once  seen  above,  con- 
tinue to  appear  for  a  long  time,  even  indefinitely.  But 
each  bit  of  difference  that  creeps  in  lessens  the  accord- 
ance; new  habits  arise,  special  disturbing  influences  set 
in,  and  the  distance  comes  at  last,  perhaps,  to  be  rapidly 
instead  of  slowly  increased.  The  history  of  our  English, 
as  compared  with  the  Low-German  dialects  from  which 
it  sheered  off  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  is  as  strik- 
ing an  example  of  this  as  could  be  desired. 

Again,  as  dialectic  discordance  only  arises  in  conse- 
quence of  linguistic  growth,  and  as  the  maintenance  of 
an  original  condition  of  speech  unchanged  would  do 
away  with  all  possibility  of  difference  of  speech  among 
the  separated  parts  of  the  community  which  formerly 
spoke  it  as  one  together,  it  is  evident  that  the  rate  of 
divergence  must  depend  in  great  degree  upon  the  gen- 
eral rate  of  growth.  And,  as  we  have  seen,  the  influ- 
ences of  barbarism  and  of  civilization  are  directly  op- 


//" 


166  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

posed  to  one  another  in  this  regard,  although  they  are 
by  no  means  the  only  determining  influences  which 
quicken  or  retard  the  alterative  processes.  It  is  the 
predominant  forces  of  civilization  which,  by  a  two-fold 
action,  have  kept  the  language  of  the  two  great  divisions 
of  English-speakers  nearly  accordant,  notwithstanding 
the  broad  ocean  that  rolls  between  them:  first,  by  mak- 
ing actual  communication  between  them  easier  and 
closer  than  between  two  tribes  of  rude  people  separated 
only  by  a  few  miles  of  mountain  or  of  plain,  by  a  forest 
or  a  river;  indeed,  even  by  giving  them,  as  it  were,  in 
their  common  literature,  a  great  body  of  speakers  who 
are  all  the  time  communicating  with  both;  and,  in  the 
second  place,  by  so  restraining  the  activity  of  the  alter- 
ative processes  that  their  results  have  time  to  reach  and 
permeate  both  divisions.  Absence  of  the  same  conserv- 
ing influences  causes  the  French  of  the  liabitans  of  Can- 
ada and  the  German  of  the  colony  in  Pennsylvania  to 
differ  far  more  widely  from  the  dialects  of  the  countries 
whence  these  colonists  came. 

The  most  instructive  attainable  example  of  dialectic 
growth,  on  the  whole,  is  that  presented  us  in  the  Eo- 
manic  languages,  because  we  have  there  a  most  im- 
portant and  widely-spread  body  of  highly  cultivated 
languages,  each  with  its  legion  of  subsidiary  dialectic 
forms ;  and  also — what  is  nowhere  else  to  be  had  in  any- 
thing like  the  same  measure — the  very  mother,  the 
Latin,  from  which  they  have  all  sprung.  The  student 
of  language  finds  in  them  a  whole  world  of  facts  to  study 
and  compare,  to  trace  out  in  their  origin  and  in  the  laws 
which  have  produced  them.  And  his  task,  though  in 
part  simple  and  easy,  is  also  in  no  small  part  difficult 
and  baffling;  for  even  here,  under  the  eyes  of  history, 
as  it  were,  though  hidden  from  them,  have  gone  on 


EXAMPLES   OF   ROMANIC   VARIATION.  167 

changes  which  seem  to  defy  investigation,  producing 
results  which  cannot  be  carried  back  to  their  sources. 
Let  us  look  at  a  specimen  or  two  of  the  process  of  di- 
varication, as  it  has  passed  upon  some  of  the  materials 
of  the  Latin  original. 

The  Latin  had  a  word  for  '  brother/  f  rater.  In 
French,  the  word,  in  the  abbreviated  form  frere,  still 
bears  the  old  office.  But  in  Italian  and  Spanish,  the 
same  word,  having  undergone  still  greater  mutilation — 
as  Spanish  fray,  Italian  frate  and  fra — signifies  only  a 
'  brother  '  of  some  ecclesiastical  order,  a  friar,  as  we  call 
it,  by  yet  another  form  of  the  same  name.  So,  for 
'  brother  '  in  its  original  and  proper  sense,  each  language 
has  had  to  provide  a  new  word :  the  Italian  takes  the 
diminutive  fratello;  the  Spanish  puts  to  use  the  Latin 
germamts,  '  nearly  related/  and  says  hermano.  Again, 
the  Latin  had  the  name  mulier  for  a  '  woman/  dis- 
tinctively as  woman,  besides  femina  for  '  female/ 
woman  or  other.  In  Spanish,  now,  the  former  is  still 
retained,  altered  to  muger,  in  nearly  its  ancient  mean- 
ing; but  in  Italian,  as  moglie,  it  signifies  only  '  wife  '  or 
'  spouse ; '  and  in  French  it  has  utterly  disappeared.  In 
French,  femme,  the  representative  of  the  other  Latin 
word,  has  become  the  general  name  for  '  woman/  adding 
also  the  meaning  of  '  wife ; '  while  for  '  female '  has 
come  to  be  used  femelle  (like  Italian  fratello  for  Latin 
f rater).  For  'woman/  the  Italian  has  shaped  a  new 
word,  donna,  out  of  later  Latin  domina,  '  mistress ; ' 
and  the  Spanish  uses  for  '  lady '  the  same  word  donna, 
besides  sefiora,  a  feminine  of  modern  make  to  senior, 
'  older  person.'  These  are  fair  specimens  of  how  the 
original  material  of  a  language  gets  worked  over,  in 
form  and  in  meaning,  in  the  keeping  of  the  severed  de- 
scendants of  that  language.    If  we  looked  into  the  class 


168  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

of  verbs,  we  should  find  the  same  condition  of  things. 
The  verb  '  be,'  for  example,  is  made  up  of  a  remnant 
of  the  forms  of  the  Latin  esse,  pieced  out  in  all  the 
dialects  with  parts  of  stare,  '  stand : '  so  the  French 
etais,  He,  are  stabam,  status,  with  remarkable  alterations 
of  form,  one  of  which  has  been  commented  on  above 
(p.  54).  And  the  French  verb  'go'  is  put  together  by 
adding  parts  of  Latin  ire,  '  go,'  and  parts  of  vadere, 
'walk,'  to  a  main  stock  of  very  obscure  origin,  repre- 
senting Latin  adnare,  '  arrive  by  water,'  or  aditare, 
'  make  one's  adit,  or  arrival,'  or  something  of  the  sort. 
Turning  now  to  the  Germanic  dialects,  our  own  near- 
est relatives,  we  find  the  same  kind  of  resemblance  in 
difference  everywhere  prevailing.  The  Germanic  words 
for  '  brother ' — as  Netherlandish  broeder,  German  bru- 
der,  Icelandic  brodhir,  Swedish  and  Danish  broder  and 
bror — are  not  less  obviously  the  variations  of  one  original 
than  are  the  Romanic  products  of  frater.  The  old 
Germanic  weib,  '  Mroman,'  is  found  in  most  of  the 
modern  languages,  in  easily  recognizable  forms,  with 
its  former  value;  but  in  modern  English  its  representa- 
tive wife  has  become  restricted  (like  Italian  nioglie)  to 
a  married  woman.  And  there  is  another  ancient  word, 
Gothic  quens  and  quinon,  which  in  some  dialects  is  the 
accepted  name  for  '  woman,'  instead  of  the  other,  but 
which  in  English  has  undergone  the  curious  fate  of  be- 
ing divided  into  two  terms,  of  lofty  and  humble  mean- 
ing, queen  and  quean.  Our  verbs  be  and  go,  too,  like 
their  Romanic  equivalents,  are  made  up  of  fragments 
from  various  roots,  pieced  together  partly  in  more 
ancient,  partly  in  more  modern  times.  Both  we  have 
already  noticed  elsewhere  in  passing  (pp.  90,  101)  ;  it  is 
unnecessary  here  to  enter  into  any  further  detail  re- 
specting them. 


EXAMPLES  OF  GERMANIC  VARIATION.        169 

From  these  and  all  the  other  innumerable  corre- 
spondences of  the  Germanic  dialects  we  cannot  possibly 
help  drawing  the  same  conclusion  which  is  taught  us 
by  a  comparison  of  the  Latin  with  its  descendants.  It 
is  not  one  whit  less  certain  that  wife  and  weib  and  vif 
and  the  rest  are  the  variously  altered  representatives  of 
a  single  primitive  Germanic  vocable,  than  that  moglic 
and  muger  come  from  the  Latin  mulier.  We  may  not 
always,  or  often,  be  able  to  restore  by  inference  the  Ger- 
manic word  with  a  certainty  equal  to  that  inspired  by 
the  actually  preserved  Latin  word;  but  that  makes  no 
difference.  We  believe  in  the  former  existence  of  the 
grandfather  of  a  group  of  cousins,  whom  we  have  never 
seen  because  he  died  long  ago,  just  as  thoroughly  as  in 
the  present  existence  of  one  whom  we  find  still  living 
in  the  midst  of  another  group.  According  to  our  ex- 
perience of  how  things  go  on  in  the  world  of  human 
beings  and  in  that  of  words,  there  is  no  other  possibil- 
ity. The  processes  of  linguistic  change,  working  regu- 
larly on  in  the  way  in  which  we  see  them  working  in 
the  present  and  the  recently  past  historic  periods,  are 
fully  sufficient  to  account  for  the  existence  in  certain 
languages  of  groups  of  words  more  or  less  resembling 
one  another  yet  not  identical ;  and  there  is  no  need  that 
we  resort  to  adventurous  hypotheses  for  its  explanation. 

This,  legitimately  generalized,  gives  us  the  great 
principle  that  genuine  correspondences,  of  whatever 
degree,  between  the  words  of  different  languages,  are 
to  be  interpreted  as  the  result  of  derivation  from  one 
original :  relationship,  in  words  as  in  men,  implies  de- 
scent from  a  common  ancestor.  And  what  is  true  of 
the  words  of  two  languages  is  true  of  the  languages 
themselves :  languages  made  up  of  related  words  must 
be  descended  from  a  single  common  language. 
13 


1/ 


170  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

Only,  to  this  principle  need  to  be  applied  certain 
cautions  and  corrections.  Two  sources  of  error  require 
to  be  guarded  against  in  its  use.  First,  words  are  bor- 
rowed out  of  one  language  into  another,  as  was  fully 
explained  and  illustrated  in  the  seventh  chapter.  Cer- 
tain elements  in  English  are  of  common  descent  with 
elements  in  the  Romanic  and  in  many  other  of  the 
world's  languages;  they  have  been  handed  over  from 
the  tradition  of  one  people  into  that  of  another:  and 
though  there  is  so  far  a  community  of  tradition,  it  does 
not  imply  general  relationship  of  the  languages.  Sec- 
ondly, accidental  correspondences  occur  between  words 
which  have  no  historical  connection :  so,  for  example, 
between  Greek  0X0$  and  our  whole,  between  Sanskrit 
loha  and  Latin  locus,  between  Mod.  Greek  fxart,  '  eye,' 
and  Polynesian  mata,  '  see,'  and  so  on.  These  two  dif- 
ficulties impose  upon  the  comparer  of  languages  the 
necessity  of  increased  caution  in  his  work,  and  warn 
him  against  over-hasty  conclusions.  An  instance  or  two, 
or  a  few  instances,  of  verbal  correspondence  are  not 
sufficient  to  prove  anything.  But  accidental  resem- 
blances have  their  limit;  and  it  is  in  general  possible  to 
distinguish  borrowed  material,  so  as  not  to  be  misled  by 
it  into  false  inferences.  The  linguist  looks  to  see  both 
how  many  and  how  close  the  asserted  correspondences 
are,  and  in  what  part  of  the  vocabulary  they  are  found. 
If  we  did  not  know  by  external  information  the  history 
of  English,  we  could  still  recognize  it  beyond  all  question 
as  essentially  a  Germanic  dialect,  by  noticing  what  parts 
its  material  accord  with  the  Germanic  tongues,  and 
what  part  with  the  Romanic. 

j^But  relationship  in  language,  as  in  genealogy,  is  a 
thing  of  degrees,  and  for  t lie  same  reason.  The  French, 
Spanish,  and  Italian  are  cousins,  on  grounds  which  we 


INDO-EUROPEAN  CORRESPONDENCES.         171 

have  already  sufficiently  noticed;  but  each  is  a  group 
of  yet  more  closely  related  dialects.  And  so  also  among 
the  Germanic  languages :  The  English  belongs  to  a  Low- 
German  group,  still  occupying  the  northern  shores  of 
Germany,  whence  the  ancestors  of  the  English  came; 
there  is  likewise  a  High- German  group,  occupying  the 
central  and  southern  part  of  Germany;  and  there  is  a 
Scandinavian  group,  holding  in  possession  Denmark, 
Sweden  and  Norway,  and  Iceland;  moreover,  there  is 
a  single  dialect,  the  Mceso-Gothic,  of  which  limited  rec- 
ords are  saved  from  extinction,  and  which  represents 
alone  yet  another  group,  of  unknown  extent.  From 
these  minor  groupings  precisely  the  same  inference  is 
to  be  drawn  as  from  the  larger  ones:  they  represent 
historical  centres  of  more  recent  divergence,  of  the 
same  kind  and  by  the  same  means  as  the  others. 

Nor  does  the  finding  of  correspondences  and  tracing 
of  relationships  end  here.  Between  the  Germanic  bro- 
th a  r  and  the  Latin  f rater  there  is  a  pretty  evident  re- 
semblance, which  becomes  still  more  evident  when  we 
put  alongside  of  them  other  words  of  the  same  class,  as 
German  mothar,  fatliar,  and  Latin  mater,  pater.  But 
there  are  yet  other  groups  of  languages  which  show 
similar  signs  of  relationship :  we  find  in  Greek  cpparrfp 
(meaning,  to  be  sure,  only  a  member  of  a  confraternity, 
like  fray  and  fra,  as  noticed  above)  and  fi^Vp  an(i 
irarrjp;  and,  in  Sanskrit,  bhrdtar  and  mdtar  and  pitar; 
and  the  Persian  and  Celtic  and  Slavonic  tongues  have 
in  the  same  words  correspondences  which  are  like  these, 
though  not  quite  so  striking.  These  are  telling  indica- 
tions of  an  original  relationship  among  all  the  groups 
of  languages  mentioned:  outcroppings,  as  it  were,  of 
a  vein  which  invites  further  exploration.  For,  in  the 
first  place,  the  correspondences  are  too  numerous  and 


172  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

wide-spread  and  close  to  be  explained  with  the  slightest 
show  of  plausibility  as  the  result  of  chance;  and  then, 
there  appears  to  be  equally  small  hope  of  accounting 
for  them  by  borrowing.  How  should  all  these  widely- 
sundered  tribes  of  men,  found  at  the  dawn  of  history 
in  every  variety  of  cultural  condition,  have  obtained 
from  a  common  source,  or  by  transmission  from  one 
to  another,  names  for  conceptions  like  these,  the  forma- 
tion of  which  must  have  accompanied  the  first  devel- 
opment of  family  life?  Plainly,  all  probabilities  are 
against  it. 

No  confident  conclusion,  however,  as  to  so  impor- 
tant a  fact  should  be  built  on  narrow  foundations;  and 
we  look  further,  into  other  classes  of  words.  There  are 
no  savages  in  the  world  so  undeveloped  that  they  can- 
not count  '  one,  two,  three ' — even  though  there  are 
those  who  have  gone  no  further  than  that  by  their  own 
powers,  but  are  either  destitute  of  the  higher  num- 
bers, or  have  borrowed  them  from  races  more  advanced. 
If  we  find  these  numerals  accordant  in  the  languages 
we  have  named,  it  will  be  a  very  strong  piece  of  evi- 
dence corroborative  of  that  furnished  by  the  names  of 
relationship.  And  the  accordance  exists,  and  is  of  the 
most  striking  character,  not  only  in  these  numerals,  but 
in  all  that  follow :  dwa  is  the  common  basis  of  the 
various  words  for  '  two,'  and  tri  of  those  for  '  three,' 
through  the  whole  great  mass  of  dialects.  The  pro- 
nouns, again,  are  a  class  of  words  in  which  the  suspicion 
of  borrowing  is,  if  possible,  even  less  to  be  entertained; 
and  here  also,  in  such  words  as  those  for  '  thou  '  (twa) 
and  'me'  (ma),  in  the  demonstrative  ta  and  the  inter- 
rogative Jcwa,  we  find  a  degree  of  agreement  which  is 
quite  beyond  the  power  of  accident  to  have  produced. 

Yet  once  more,  we  have  seen  (p.  119)  that  inflec- 


INDO-EUROPEAN  CORRESPONDENCES.         173 

tional  apparatus,  grammatical  structure,  is  most  of  all 
out  of  the  reach  of  a  language  that  is  borrowing  from 
another.  But  through  all  the  grammatical  apparatus  of 
these  groups  of  dialects,  when  we  can  reach  far  enough 
back  in  their  history  to  find  it  preserved  in  a  distinct 
form,  we  discover  an  accordance  not  less  convincing. 
Thus,  in  the  verbal  inflection,  there  are  the  various 
alterations  of  an  original  ending  mi  for  the  first  per- 
son singular,  and  of  masi  for  the  first  plural;  of  si  and 
tasi  for  the  second  person,  and  of  ti  and  anti  for  the 
third;  of  a  reduplication  forming  a  perfect  tense,  of  a 
sign  of  the  optative  mood,  and  so  on.  In  noun  declen- 
sion the  traces  are  more  obscure  and  scanty,  but  still 
perceptible  enough.  The  comparison  of  adjectives  is 
everywhere  by  the  same  means.  Participles  and  other 
derivative  words  show  the  same  suffixes  of  derivation. 

In  short,  there  is  a  superabundance  of  evidence  go- 
ing to  prove  that  the  speech  of  all  the  peoples  we  have 
mentioned,  filling  most  of  Europe,  ancient  and  modern, 
and  an  important  tract  of  Asia,  is  related,  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  have  used  that  word  above.  There  is  no 
theoretic  reason  against  such  a  fact;  rather,  every  con- 
clusion drawn  from  the  phenomena  of  existing  speech 
makes  directly  in  its  favor.  We  know  that  the  separa- 
tion and  isolation  of  the  different  parts  of  a  once  uni- 
tary community  must  necessarily  bring  about  a  separa- 
tion of  its  language  into  different  dialects;  and  we 
know  that  this  process  may  go  on  repeating  itself,  over 
and  over  again ;  and  that,  at  the  end,  those  dialects 
which  parted  latest  will  (apart  from  special  altering 
forces),  though  unlike,  be  least  unlike  and  most  like  one 
another,  while  those  which  parted  earliest  will  be  least 
like  and  most  unlike  one  another :  and  we  know  of  no 
other  wav  in  which  this  likeness  in  unlikeness '  can  be 


v 


174  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

brought  about.  We  infer,  then,  that  all  the  languages 
in  question  are  the  divaricated  representatives  of  a  sin- 
gle tongue,  spoken  somewhere  and  somewhen  in  the 
past  by  a  single  limited  community,  by  the  spread  and 
dispersion  of  which  all  its  discordances  have  in  the 
course  of  time  grown  up.  Such  a  grand  congeries  of 
related  languages,  in  different  degrees,  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  call  a  "  family : "  a  name  taken,  by  an  allow- 
able figurative  transfer,  from  the  vocabulary  of  gene- 
alogy. 

This  is  an  example  of  the  way  we  are  to  proceed  to 
examine  and  classify  all  the  various  languages  which 
the  earth  contains.  The  first  steps  in  it  are  easy  enough. 
It  takes  no  conjurer  to  discover  that  London  English  and 
Yorkshire  English  and  Scotch  English  and  negro  Eng- 
lish, even,  are  all  one  language;  and  no  observant  per- 
son, probably,  who  learns  German  or  Dutch  or  Swedish, 
fails  to  see  that  he  has  in  hand  a  tongue  akin  with  his 
own.  But  it  takes  a  more  penetrating  and  enlightened 
study  to  pick  out  the  signs  of  original  unity  amid  the 
greatly  more  conspicuous  differences  of  English,  French, 
Welsh,  Eussian,  Romaic,  Persian,  and  Hindi;  and  it 
requires  especially  a  resort,  in  the  case  of  each  lan- 
guage, to  the  older  tongues  of  its  own  nearer  kindred, 
which  have  preserved  the  ancient  common  material 
with  less  change.  Only  the  learned  and  experienced 
investigator,  therefore,  can  be  trusted  to  push  the  work 
of  classification  safely  to  its  extreme  limits;  and  the 
classification  of  all  human  tongues  is  only  attainable  by 
the  labors  of  a  great  number  of  investigators,  each 
learned  in  his  own  special  department.  Nor  lias  it 
been  even  thus  by  any  means  finished ;  yet  much  has 
been  done  toward  it:  the  vast  majority  of  languages 
have  been  grouped  together  by  their  affinities  into  fam- 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  DIALECTS.  175 

ilies  and  branches  of  families;  and  the  results  of  this 
classification  have  to  be  briefly  reviewed  by  us  in  the 
following  chapters. 

For,  as  might  be  expected  to  follow  from  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  above  as  determining  dialectic  growth, 
there  is  not  a  language  in  the  world  which  does  not  ex- 
ist in  the  condition  of  dialectic  division,  so  that  the 
speech  of  each  community  is  the  member  of  a  more  or 
less  extended  family — unless,  indeed,  there  may  be  here 
and  there  an  isolated  language  so  nearly  extinct  as  to 
be  used  only  by  the  narrowest  possible  community:  by 
a  few  families,  or  a  single  village.  Even  languages  of 
so  limited  area  as  the  Basque  in  the  Pyrenees,  as  some 
of  the  tongues  in  the  Caucasus,  have  their  well-marked 
dialectic  forms ;  because  an  uncivilized  people  can 
hardly  break  up  even  into  camps,  and  still  maintain 
that  communication  which  alone  can  keep  their  speech 
a  unit. 

This  linguistic  condition  of  the  earth  runs  parallel, 
in  the  closest  manner,  with  its  social  and  political  con- 
dition. At  the  very  beginning  of  history,  and  even  as 
far  beyond  as  archaeological  science  can  penetrate,  the 
earth  is  all  peopled,  more  or  less  thickly,  with  a  seem- 
ingly heterogeneous  mass  of  clans  and  tribes  and  na- 
tions. But  not  even  the  most  heterodox  naturalist  who 
holds  to  a  variety  of  origins  for  the  human  race  believes 
these  all  to  have  sprung  out  of  the  ground,  as  it  were, 
where  they  stand :  they  come  from  the  multiplication 
and  dispersion  of  a  certain  limited  number  of  primitive 
families,  if  not,  as  many  think,  from  that  of  a  single 
family.  So  with  language :  at  the  first  attainable  pe- 
riod of  our  knowledge  of  it,  whether  by  actual  record 
or  by  the  inferences  of  the  comparative  student,  it  is  in 
a  state  of  almost  endless  subdivision;  and  yet  every 


176  DIALECTIC  VARIATION. 

sound  linguist  holds,  and  knows  that  he  has  the  most 
satisfactory  reasons  for  holding,  that  this  apparent  con- 
fusion is  a  result  of  the  extension  and  divarication  of  a 
certain  limited  number  of  primitive  dialects — whether 
of  a  single  one,  is  a  question  which  we  shall  have  later 
to  consider  our  right  to  determine.  At  the  earliest 
historical  period,  too,  the  darkness  of  barbarism  covers 
the  earth  in  general ;  the  centres  of  culture  are  but  two 
or  three,  and  their  light  spreads  but  a  very  little  way, 
and  is  even  in  constant  danger  of  being  extinguished 
by  the  greatly  superior  brute  force  of  the  uncultivated 
masses  around.  Hence  the  divaricating  forces  in  lin- 
guistic growth  are  also  in  the  ascendant ;  dialects  go  on 
multiplying,  by  the  action  of  the  same  causes  that  had 
already  produced  them.  But  wherever  civilization  is  at 
work,  an  opposite  influence,  in  linguistic  as  in  political 
affairs,  is  powerfully  operating.  Out  of  the  congeries  of 
jarring  tribes  are  growing  great  nations;  out  of  the  Babel 
of  discordant  dialects  are  growing  languages  of  wider 
and  constantly  extending  unity.  The  two  kinds  of 
change  go  hand  in  hand,  simply  because  the  one  of  them 
is  dependent  on  the  other :  nothing  can  make  wide  unity 
of  speech  except  extended  community;  nothing  but 
civilization  can  make  extended  community.  As,  through 
the  ages  of  recorded  history,  the  power  as  well  as  the 
degree  of  civilization  has  been  constantly  growing,  till 
now  it  is  the  predominant  force,  and  the  uncivilized 
races  subsist  only  by  the  toleration  of  the  civilized — if 
even  that ;  so,  by  external  forces,  every  act  and  influence 
of  which  is  clearly  definable,  the  cultivated  languages 
have  been  and  are  extending  their  sway,  crowding  out 
of  existence  the  patois  which  had  grown  up  under  the 
old  order  of  things,  gaining  such  advantage  that  men 
are  beginning  to  dream  of  a  time  when  one  language 


LANGUAGE  AND  DIALECT.  Iff 

may  be  spoken  all  over  the  earth.  And,  though  the 
dream  may  be  Utopian,  there  is  not  an  element  of  the 
theoretically  impossible  in  it;  only  a  certain  condition 
of  external  circumstances  is  needed  to  render  it  in- 
evitable. 

It  is  possible  so  to  misunderstand  these  facts  in  the 
wide  history  of  human  speech  as  to  believe  that  lan- 
guage actually  began  in  a  condition  of  infinite  dialectic 
division,  and  has  been  from  the  outset  tending  toward 
concentration  and  final  unity.  But  that  is  possible  only 
by  a  total  failure  to  comprehend  the  forces  that  are  at 
work  in  the  growth  of  language,  and  the  modes  of 
their  interaction.  Tell  the  ethnologist  that  the  begin- 
nings of  the  human  race  were  an  indefinite  number  of 
unconnected  individuals,  who  first  coalesced  into  fami- 
lies, and  these  into  clans  and  tribes,  and  these  into  con- 
federacies, whence  came  nations,  and  whence  may  yet 
come,  by  the  same  natural  tendency  to  unity  out  of  di- 
versity, a  single  homogeneous  race  all  over  the  earth — 
and  he  will  hardly  pay  the  theory  the  compliment  even 
of  laughing  at  it.  And  the  corresponding  linguistic 
view  is  really  just  as  absurd ;  only,  from  the  greater 
obscurity  or  unfamiliarity  of  the  conditions  involved, 
not  so  palpably  absurd,  and  therefore  not  so  ludicrous. 

Before  closing  this  chapter,  we  must  notice  for  a 
moment  the  meaning  of  the  terms  language  and  dialect, 
in  their  relation  to  one  another.  They  are  only  two 
names  for  the  same  thing,  as  looked  at  from  differ- 
ent points  of  view.  Any  body  of  expressions  used  by 
a  community,  however  limited  and  humble,  for  the 
purposes  of  communication  and  as  the  instrument  of 
thought,  is  a  language ;  no  one  would  think  of  credit- 
ing its  speakers  with  the  gift  of  dialect  but  not  of  lan- 
guage.    On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  tongue  in  the 


V 


178  DIALECTIC   VARIATION. 

world  to  which  wo  should  not  with  perfect  freedom 
and  perfect  propriety  apply  the  name  of  dialect,  when 
considering  it  as  one  of  a  body  of  related  forms  of 
speech.  The  science  of  language  has  democratized  our 
views  on  such  points  as  these;  it  has  taught  us  that 
one  man's  speech  is  just  as  much  a  language  as  another 
man's;  that  even  the  most  cultivated  tongue  that  exists 
is  only  the  dialect  of  a  certain  class  in  a  certain  locality 
— both  class  and  locality  limited,  though  the  limits  may 
be  wide  ones.  The  written  English  is  one  of  the  forms 
of  English,  used  by  the  educated  class  for  certain  pur- 
poses, having  dialectic  characters  by  which  it  is  distin- 
guished from  the  colloquial  speech  of  the  same  class, 
and  yet  more  from  the  speech  of  other  classes  or  sections 
of  the  English-speaking  community — and  each  one  of 
these  is  as  valuable  to  the  comparative  student  of  lan- 
guage as  their  alleged  superior.  But  English  and 
Dutch  and  German  and  Swedish,  and  so  on,  are  the 
dialects  of  Germanic  speech;  and  the  same,  along  with 
French  and  Irish  and  Bohemian,  and  the  rest,  are  the 
dialects  of  the  wider  family  whose  limits  we  have 
drawn  above.  This  is  the  scientific  use  of  the  terms; 
in  the  looseness  of  popular  parlance,  an  attempt  is  made 
at  the  distinction  of  degrees  of  dignity  and  importance 
by  means  of  the  same  words,  as  when  the  literary  lan- 
guage of  a  community  is  alone  allowed  the  name  of 
language,  and  the  rest  are  styled  dialects.  For  ordinai-v 
purposes  the  usage  is  convenient  enough;  but  it  has  no 
acceptableness  on  other  grounds;  it  forms  no  part  of 
linguistic  science. 


CHAPTER   X. 

INDO-EUROrEAN    LANGUAGE. 

Genetic  classification.  Indo-European  family ;  its  names ;  its 
branches  and  their  earliest  records :  Germanic,  Slavo-Lettic, 
Celtic,  Italic,  Greek,  Iranian,  and  Indian  ;  doubtful  members. 
Importance  of  this  family ;  value  of  its  study  to  the  science 
of  language.  Time  and  place  of  original  community  impos- 
sible to  determine.  Scientific  method  of  studying  its  struc- 
tural history;  form-making  by  composition  and  integration; 
sufficiency  of  the  principle.  Resulting  doctrine  of  original 
radical  monosyllabism  ;  Indo-European  roots.  Development 
of  forms  :  structure  of  verb,  of  noun  ;  pronouns;  adverbs  and 
particles ;  interjections,  their  analogy  with  roots.  Question 
of  order  of  development,  and  time  occupied.  Synthetic  and 
analytic  structure. 

Having  examined,  with  all  the  fullness  which  the 
space  at  our  command  allows,  the  foundation  on  which 
a  genetic  classification  of  the  languages  of  the  world 
reposes,  we  are  ready  to  undertake  a  brief  view  of  that 
classification,  as  established  by  the  researches  of  linguis- 
tic scholars.  We  have  seen  that  correspondence  in  the 
material  of  different  languages,  if  existing  in  measure 
and  kind  beyond  what  can  be  accounted  for  as  the  re- 
sult of  accident  or  of  borrowing,  is  explainable  only  as 
clue  to  the  separate  tradition  of  an  originally  common 
tongue,  a  tradition  which  preserved  a  part  of  the  ori- 
ginal usages,  while  it  modified  or  discarded  other  parts, 

179 


V 


180  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

or  introduced  what  was  new,  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
obscure,  and  perhaps  even  to  hide,  the  evidences  of  for- 
mer connection.  As  an  example,  we  glanced  at  an  out- 
line of  the  great  family  of  related  tongues  to  which 
our  own  belongs,  and  noticed  a  limited  but  sufficient 
specimen  of  the  evidence  on  which  is  founded  the  gen- 
eral belief  in  its  unity  as  a  family.  We  have  now  to 
go  on  and  lay  down  more  definitely  the  constitution  of 
this  family,  and  to  sketch  its  structure  and  its  structural 
history. 

It  is  called,  in  the  first  place,  by  a  variety  of  names, 
no  one  of  which  has  fully  established  itself  in  general 
use.  We  will  employ  "  Indo-European,"  as  having  on 
the  whole  the  best  claim;  it  was  deliberately  adopted 
by  Bopp,  the  great  expounder  of  the  relations  of  the 
family,  and  is  as  widely  used  as  any  of  the  others. 
Most  of  Bopp's  countrymen  now  prefer  "  Indo-Ger- 
manic,"  for  no  other  assignable  reason  than  that  it  con- 
tains the  foreign  appellation  of  their  own  particular 
branch,  as  given  by  their  conquerors  and  teachers,  the 
Romans.  Others,  rejecting  both  these  titles  as  cum- 
brously  long,  say  instead  "  Aryan,"  which  also  has  a 
wide  and  perhaps  a  growing  currency;  the  chief  objec- 
tion is,  that  it  properly  belongs  only  to  the  Asiatic 
division,  composed  of  the  Iranian  and  Indian  branches, 
and  is  still  needed  and  widely  used  to  designate  that 
division.  "  Sanskritic,"  from  the  oldest  and  in  some 
respects  the  leading  language  of  the  family,  and  "  Ja- 
phetic," from  the  son  of  Noah  to  whom  are  attributed 
as  descendants  in  the  Genesis  some  of  the  people  speak- 
ing its  various  dialects,  are  terms  of  limited  and  now 
obsolescent  employment. 

The  Indo-European  family,  then,  is  composed  of 
seven  great  branches :  the  Indian,  the  Iranian  or  Per- 


GERMANIC  BRANCH.  181 

sian,  the  Greek,  the  Italic,  the  Celtic,  the  Slavonic  or 
Slavo-Lettic,  and  the  Germanic  or  Teutonic. 

Taking  these  up  in  their  inverse  order,  we  have 
first  the  Germanic  branch,  in  the  four  principal  divi- 
sions already  noted:  1.  The  Mceso-Gothic,  or  dialect 
of  the  Goths  of  Mcesia,  preserved  only  in  parts  of  a 
Bible-version  made  by  their  bishop  Ulfilas  in  the  fourth 
century  of  our  era,  being  long  ago  extinct  as  a  spoken 
language.  2.  The  Low-German  languages,  still  spoken 
in  the  north  of  Germany,  from  Holstein  to  Flanders, 
and  across  in  the  neighboring  England,  and  including 
two  important  cultivated  tongues,  the  Netherlandish 
and  the  English.  English  literary  monuments  go  back 
to  the  seventh  century,  Netherlandish  to  the  thirteenth; 
and  there  is  an  "  Old- Saxon  "  poem,  the  Heliand,  or 
'  Savior,'  from  the  ninth,  and  Friscan  literature  from 
the  fourteenth.  3.  The  High-German  body  of  dialects, 
represented  at  the  present  day  by  only  a  single  literary 
language,  the  so-called  German,  of  which  the  literature 
begins  with  the  Reformation,  in  the  sixteenth  century; 
back  of  this,  the  New  High-German  period,  lie  a  Mid- 
dle and  an  Old  High-German  period,  with  their  litera- 
tures in  various  somewhat  discordant  dialects,  reaching 
back  into  the  eighth  century.  4.  The  Scandinavian 
division,  written  in  the  forms  of  Danish,  Swedish, 
Norwegian,  and  Icelandic.  The  Icelandic  monuments 
go  back  to  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  and  are 
in  point  of  style  and  content  older  than  anything  in 
High  or  Low  German :  the  Edda  is  the  purest  and 
most  abundant  source  of  knowledge  for  primitive  Ger- 
manic conditions.  The  Icelandic  is  also,  especially  in 
its  phonetic  state,  the  most  antique  of  living  Germanic 
dialects.  Besides  these  literary  remains,  there  are  brief 
Runic  inscriptions,  generally  of  but  a  word  or  two,  go- 


182  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

ing  back,  it  is  believed,  even  to  the  third  or  second  cen- 
tury. 

The  Slavonic  branch  has  always  lain  in  close  prox- 
imity to  the  Germanic,  on  the  east;  it  has  been  the 
last  of  all  to  gain  historical  prominence.  Its  eastern 
division  includes  the  Russian,  Bulgarian,  Servian  and 
Croatian,  and  Slovenian.  The  Bulgarian  has  the  oldesl 
records;  its  version  of  the  Bible,  made  in  the  ninth 
century,  in  the  same  region  where  the  Gothic  version 
has  been  made  five  centuries  earlier,  has  become  the 
accepted  version,  and  its  dialect  the  church  language, 
throughout  the  Slavonic  division  of  the  Greek  church. 
The  Eussian  is  by  far  the  most  important  language  of 
the  whole  branch;  it  has  remains  from  the  eleventh 
century;  some  of  the  southern  dialects  present  speci- 
mens from  a  yet  remoter  date.  To  the  western  division 
belong  the  Polish,  the  Bohemian,  of  which  the  Mora- 
vian and  Slovakian  are  closely  kindred  dialects,  the 
Sorbian,  and  the  Polabian.  There  is  nothing  in  Polish 
earlier  than  the  fourteenth  century;  Bohemian  records 
are  believed  to  go  back  to  the  tenth. 

This  branch  is  often  called  the  Slavo-Lettic,  because 
it  is  made  to  include  another  sub-branch,  the  Lettic  or 
Lithuania,  which,  though  considerably  further  removed 
from  the  Slavonic  than  any  of  these  from  the  rest,  is 
yet  too  nearly  related  to  rank  as  a  separate  branch.  It 
is  composed  of  three  main  dialects:  the  Old-Prussian, 
extinct  during  the  past  two  centuries,  the  Lithuanian, 
and  the  Livonian  or  Lettish;  all  clustered  about  the 
great  bend  of  the  Baltic.  The  Lithuanian  is  the  most 
important  and  the  oldest,  having  records  from  the  mid- 
dle of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  exhibits  in  some  re- 
spects a  remarkable  conservation  of  ancient  material 
and  form. 


CELTIC  AND  ITALIC  BRANCHES.  183 

The  Celtic  branch  is  one  which  from  the  beginning 
of  history  has  been  shrinking  in  extent,  till  it  now  oc- 
cupies only  the  remotest  western  edges  of  the  immense 
region  of  western  and  central  Europe  which  it  formerly 
possessed.  Not  enough  is  known  of  the  ancient  Celtic 
dialects  of  northern  Italy,  of  Gaul,  of  Spain,  to  show 
what  was  their  place  in  the  sub-classification  of  the 
branch.  The  preserved  dialects  compose  two  groups, 
usually  called  the  Cymric  and  Gadhelic.  The  Cymric 
includes  the  Welsh,  with  "  glosses  "  from  the  ninth  cen- 
tury or  thereabouts,  and  a  literature  from  the  twelfth, 
but  of  which  part  of  the  substance  is  probably  older, 
even  up  to  the  sixth;  the  Cornish,  which  became  ex- 
tinct as  a  vernacular  about  the  end  of  the  last  century, 
leaving  a  considerable  literature  nearly  as  old  as  the 
Welsh;  and  the  Armorican  of  Brittany,  so  nearly  allied 
to  the  Cornish  that  it  is  believed  to  belong  to  fugitives 
from  that  part  of  England;  its  earliest  records  are  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  The  Gadhelic  group  includes 
the  Irish,  which  has  monuments  going  back  to  the  end 
of  the  eighth  century,  the  Scotch  Gaelic,  of  which  the 
earliest  remains  are  attributed  to  the  sixteenth,  and  the 
insignificant  dialect  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 

The  Italic  branch  is  represented  among  living  lan- 
guages only  by  the  Eomanic  dialects,  so  called  as  being 
all  descended  from  the  dialect  of  Rome,  the  Latin.  We 
have  already  noticed  some  particulars  affecting  their 
history  and  their  importance.  They  all  rose  at  not  far 
from  the  same  period — namely,  the  eleventh  to  the  thir- 
teenth centuries — out  of  the  condition  of  local  patois, 
products  of  the  corruption  of  the  popular  speech  while 
the  Latin  continued  the  language  of  the  learned.  Frag- 
ments of  French  are  oldest,  coming  from  the  tenth 
century;  its  literature  begins  one  or  two  centuries  later; 


184  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

the  earliest  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  are  from  the 
twelfth,  or  hardly  earlier.  These  four  are  the  conspicu- 
ous modern  members  of  the  group.  But  there  was  also, 
in  the  eleventh  to  the  fourteenth  centuries,  a  rich  litera- 
ture of  the  chief  dialect  of  southern  France,  the  Pro- 
vencal, which,  except  for  a  recent  sporadic  effort  or  two, 
has  been  ever  since  unused  as  a  cultivated  tongue. 
There  exists,  too,  in  the  northern  provinces  of  Turkey, 
in  Wallachia  and  Moldavia,  a  broad  region  of  less  culti- 
vated Komanic  speech,  witness  to  the  spread  of  Roman 
supremacy  eastward :  it  is  destitute  of  a  proper  litera- 
ture. Moreover,  certain  dialects  of  southern  Switzer- 
land are  enough  unlike  Italian  to  be  ordinarily  ranked 
as  an  independent  tongue,  under  the  name  of  Rhseto- 
Romanic,  or  Rumansh,  or  Ladine. 

The  ancient  members  of  the  Italic  branch,  coordi- 
nate with  the  Latin,  were  long  ago  crowded  out  of  ex- 
istence; but  a  few  remains  of  them  are  still  left,  es- 
pecially of  the  Umbrian,  north  from  Rome  beyond  the 
Apennines,  and  of  the  Oscan  of  southern  Italy.  The 
Latin  itself,  in  its  oldest  monuments,  reaches  hardly 
three  centuries  beyond  the  Christian  era,  appearing 
there  in  a  form  which  seems  very  strange,  and  is  hardly 
intelligible,  to  those  who  have  learned  only  the  culti- 
vated dialect  of  the  last  century  b.  c. 

The  Greek  branch  attains  a  much  greater  age,  those 
masterpieces  of  human  genius,  the  poems  of  Homer, 
being  nearly  or  quite  a  thousand  years  older  than  our 
era.  From  about  300  b.  c,  all  Greek  is  written  in  the 
Attic  or  Athenian  dialect,  as  all  modern  German  litera- 
ture in  the  New  High-German;  but  before  that  time, 
as  in  the  Old  High-German  period,  each  author  used 
more  or  less  distinctly  his  own  local  dialect ;  and  in  this 
way,  as  well  as,  more  widely  but  less  abundantly,  by 


IRANIAN  BRANCH.  185 

inscriptions  and  the  like,  we  have  a  tolerably  full  repre- 
sentation of  the  local  varieties  into  which  the  Greek 
had  divided  in  prehistoric  times.  There  is,  of  course, 
a  similar  variety  of  dialects  now;  but  only  one  is  writ- 
ten, and  it  is  called  Modern  Greek,  or  Romaic;  it  is 
less  altered  from  the  classic  Greek  than  is  the  Italian 
from  the  Latin.  Notwithstanding  the  wide  sway  of 
Greek  civilization,  the  spread  of  Greek  empire  under 
Alexander  and  his  successors,  and  the  unexcelled  char- 
acter of  the  language,  the  latter  has  had  a  limited  and 
inconspicuous  career  as  compared  with  the  Latin:  out 
of  Greece  itself,  it  is  spoken  only  on  the  islands  and 
shores  of  the  iEgean,  and  along  the  northern  and  south- 
ern edges  of  Asia  Minor. 

The  next  branch  is  the  Persian,  or  properly  Iranian, 
since  Persia  is  only  one  among  the  many  provinces  con- 
stituting the  territory  of  Iran  {Airyana,  the  home  of 
the  western  Aryans).  It  has  two  ancient  representa- 
tives :  the  Old  Persian,  or  Achamienidan  Persian,  of 
Darius  and  his  successors;  and  the  language  of  the 
Avesta,  the  so-called  Zend,  or  Avestan,  or  Old  Bactrian. 
The  former,  of  determinate  date  (five  centuries  b.  a),  is 
read  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  recently  deciphered; 
of  the  other,  the  date  is  unknown;  it  may  be  older  or 
younger.  The  Avesta  is  the  Bible  of  the  Zoroastrian 
faith,  of  which  the  date  and  place  of  origin  are  obscure ; 
it  is  believed  to  reach  beyond  1000  b.  c.  ;  and  if  parts  of 
the  record  are,  as  they  claim  to  be,  from  Zoroaster  him- 
self, they  have  this  antiquity.  The  modern  votaries  of 
the  religion,  and  the  keepers  of  its  sacred  books,  are  the 
Parsis  of  western  India,  fugitives  from  Mohammedan 
persecution  in  their  native  land.  With  the  Avesta, 
they  have  preserved  a  version  of  it  in  the  Huzvaresh  or 

Pehlevi,  of  the  time  of  the  Sassanids,  a  dialect  of  pe- 
13 


18(3  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

culiar  and  problematical  character.  The  Modern  Per- 
sian literature,  abundant  and  rich,  begins  from  about 
a.  d.  1000,  after  the  country  had  been  ground  over  in 
the  Mohammedan  mill. 

These  are  the  languages  composing  the  main  body  of 
Iranian  speech.  The  Kurdish  is  only  a  strongly-marked 
dialect  of  Persian;  and  nearly  the  same  thing  may  be 
said  of  the  Beluchi,  the  leading  language  of  Beluchistan. 
The  Ossetic,  in  a  little  district  of  the  Caucasus,  is  plain- 
ly, but  more  distantly,  related.  The  Afghan,  or  Pushto, 
near  the  passes  that  lead  from  Iran  into  India,  is  of  Ira- 
nian kindred.  Finally,  the  Armenian,  of  which  the  con- 
siderable literature  goes  back  to  the  fifth  century,  is  gen- 
erally, though  not  without  recent  question  by  certain 
authorities,  regarded  as  Iranian  in  fundamental  type. 

The  branch  of  Indo-European  language  in  India  does 
not  cover  the  whole  of  that  vast  territory;  the  Dravid- 
ian  race,  which  was  doubtless  crowded  out  by  the  in- 
trusive Aryans  in  the  north,  still  occupies  the  main 
central  part  of  the  southern  peninsula,  the  Dekhan. 
The  earliest  of  Indo-European  tongues  is  the  Sanskrit, 
especially  its  earlier  or  Vedic  dialect,  the  dialect  of  the 
religious  hymns,  which,  with  auxiliary  literature  of 
somewhat  later  date,  became  the  Bible  of  the  Hindus, 
the  so-called  Veda.  At  the  period  of  the  oldest  hymns, 
the  Sanskrit-speaking  peoples  appear  to  have  been  not 
yet  in  possession  of  the  great  Ganges  basin,  but  nearly 
or  quite  confined,  rather,  to  the  valleys  of  the  Indus  and 
its  branches,  in  the  northwestern  corner,  the  region 
bordering  nearest  on  Iran.  The  date  is  incapable  of 
being  determined  with  any  exactness;  probably  it  was 
nearly  or  quite  2000  b.  c.  The  classical  Sanskrit  is  a 
dialect  which,  at  a  later  period,  after  the  full  posses- 
sion of  Hindustan  and  the  development  of  Brahmanism 


INDIAN  BRANCH.  187 

out  of  the  simpler  and  more  primitive  religion  and 
polity  of  Vedie  times,  became  established  as  the  literary 
language  of  the  whole  country,  and  has  ever  since  maim 
speaking  in  the  native  schools  of  the  Brahmatic  priesfc  | 
( tained  that  character,  being  still  learned  for  writing  and-- 
hood.  From  the  fact  that  inscriptions  in  a  later  form 
of  Indian  language  are  found  dating  from  the  third  cen- 
tury b.  c,  it  is  inferred  that  the  Sanskrit  must  at  least 
as  early  as  that  have  ceased  to  be  a  vernacular  tongue. 
The  next  stage  of  Indian  language,  to  which  the  in- 
scriptions just  referred  to  belong,  is  called  the  Prakri- 
tic.  One  Prakrit  dialect,  the  Pali,  became  in  its  turn 
the  sacred  language  of  southeastern  Buddhism,  and  is 
still  taught  and  learned  as  such  in  Ceylon  and  Farther 
India;  the  others  are  represented  partly  in  the  Sanskrit 
dramas,  as  the  unlearned  speech  of  the  lower  orders  of 
characters,  and  partly  by  a  limited  literature  of  their 
own.  Finally,  there  are  the  modern  dialects  of  India, 
numerous  and  various,  but  rudely  classifiable  under 
the  three  comprehensive  names  of  Hindi,  Mahratti,  and 
Bengali,  having  literatures  of  more  recent  origin.  The 
so-called  Hindustani,  or  Urdu,  is  Hindi  with  a  great  in- 
fusion of  Arabic  and  Persian  words,  introduced  by  Mo- 
hammedan influence. 

The  boundaries  of  this  great  family  are  more  dis- 
tinctly drawn  than  those  of  any  other.  But  they  are 
not  absolute  or  immovable.  There  are  one  or  two 
isolated  tongues  in  Europe  which  may  yet  be  pro- 
nounced Indo-European.  Thus,  the  Skipetar,  or  lan- 
guage of  the  Albanians,  on  that  part  of  the  west  coast 
of  European  Turkey  which  lies  close  opposite  the  heel 
of  Italy:  it  is  believed  to  be  the  representative  of  the 
ancient  Illyrian,  and  more  probably  Indo-European  than 
anything   else.     And   the   Etruscan,   the   obscure   and 


188  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

much-discussed  tongue  of  that  peculiar  people  with 
whose  relations  to  the  early  Romans,  until  finally  con- 
quered and  assimilated  by  Rome,  every  school-boy  is 
familiar,  after  being  assigned  to  almost  every  distant 
race  on  earth,  has  recently  (1874)  even  been  declared 
Indo-European  and  Italican  by  scholars  of  high  rank 
and  authority;  their  opinion,  however,  is  generally  re- 
jected. It  is  evident  enough  that  in  theory  such  cases 
of  doubtful  classification  are  to  be  expected.  There  is 
no  limit  to  the  degree  to  which  a  language  may,  by 
special  disturbing  causes,  become  altered  in  its  material 
and  structure,  even  to  the  effectual  disguise  of  its  ori- 
ginal relationships. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  the  Indo-European 
family  is  of  predominant  importance  among  the  lan- 
guages of  the  world;  why  it  has  thus  far  received  a 
very  large  share  of  the  attention  of  linguistic  scholars, 
and  must  always  continue  to  receive,  even  if  not  the 
same  share  as  hitherto,  yet  a  larger  than  any  other  fam- 
ily. The  least  of  these  reasons  is  that  it  is  our  own 
family;  though  that  is,  after  all,  no  illegitimate  plea  in 
enhancement  of  the  interest  with  which  it  is  invested 
for  us.  Of  more  importance  is  the  circumstance  that 
it  belongs  to  the  race  which  has  long  been  the  leading 
one  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  which  at  the  present 
day,  as  for  some  time  past,  has  not  even  a  rival.  The 
grand  and  highly-developed  institutions  of  great  nations 
are  those  which  most  demand  and  best  repay  study. 
The  tongues  and  the  history  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
are  that  part  of  antiquity  which  will  continue  to  form, 
even  as  it  constitutes  at  present,  a  leading  subject  in  all 
liberal  education.  And  the  whole  history  of  Indo- 
European  language  will  have  its  share  by  reflection  in 
this  educational  value,  because  it  casts  light  on  the  study 


IMPORTANCE  OP  THIS  FAMILY.  189 

of  Greek  and  Latin,  of  the  Eomanic  languages,  of  the 
Germanic  languages,  of  the  Slavonic  languages,  on  all 
that  is  nearest  and  dearest  to  those  nations  which  are 
pursuing  the  study. 

But  there  are  other  and  more  imperative  reasons 
why  the  study  of  Indo-European  language  has  been  the 
training-ground  of  the  science  of  language ;  why  the  two 
have  almost  grown  up  together,  and  in  the  minds  of 
some  have  even  perhaps  been  confused  and  identified 
with  one  another.  The  student  has  at  best  a  most  im- 
perfect and  fragmentary  record  before  him.  If  the 
whole  history  of  human  speech  were  represented  by  a 
great  sheet  of  paper,  the  part  of  it  to  be  marked  as 
known,  or  as  accessible  to  direct  knowledge,  would  be 
almost  ludicrously  small.  For  most  human  races,  only 
the  present  spoken  dialects  lie  within  reach;  then  a  few 
lines  of  light  run  back  into  the  past  to  various  distances 
toward  the  Christian  era;  a  much  smaller  number  be- 
yond that  point;  four  or  five,  probably,  into  the  second 
thousand  years  before  Christ;  and  only  one,  the  Egyp- 
tian, to  a  time  considerably  remoter  yet.  And  how 
much  of  language-history,  as  of  human  history  in  every 
department,  may  lie  behind  even  that  point,  we  are 
only  recently  beginning  to  realize.  Such  being  the 
condition  of  the  whole  field,  how  was  a  fruitful  begin- 
ning to  be  made  except  just  as  it  has  been  made — name- 
ly, by  taking  up  that  body  of  historically-related  facts 
which  was  widest  in  its  range,  deepest  and  most  abun- 
dant in  its  penetration  of  the  past,  and  most  advanced 
in  its  development  out  of  original  conditions?  By 
grasping  this  and  reducing  it  to  manageable  order,  dis- 
covering the  general  hidden  under  the  particular,  tracing 
tendencies  and  laws,  the  student  might  hope  to  acquire 
the  ability  to  deal  with  other  like  bodies  of  facts,  of 


190  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

narrower  range  and  offering  less  abundant  facilities. 
The  character  of  preeminence  in  this  line  belongs  to  the 
Indo-European,  beyond  dispute  and  beyond  comparison : 
where  we  have  equal  or  greater  penetration  of  the  past, 
as  in  Egyptian,  Chinese,  and  the  Semitic  tongues,  there 
is  either  (as  in  the  two  former)  a  peculiar  jejuneness  of 
development,  or  at  any  rate  (as  in  the  last)  a  variety 
and  wealth  which  is  greatly  inferior.  To  blame  philolo- 
gists, therefore,  for  their  devotion  hitherto  to  Indo- 
European  study  is  in  the  highest  degree  unreasonable; 
one  might  as  properly  blame  historians  for  their  devo- 
tion to  the  study  of  European  civilization  and  of  its 
sources  in  the  past.  To  cast  reproach  upon  them,  more- 
over, for  their  attention  to  the  past,  to  the  partially 
understood  records  of  extinct  and  almost  forgotten 
tongues,  and  to  declare  that  the  true  and  fruitful  field 
for  linguistic  research  is  the  living  and  spoken  dialects 
of  the  present  day,  is  not  less  narrow  and  erroneous.  It 
overlooks  the  character  of  linguistics  as  a  historical  sci- 
ence; it  forgets  that  the  explanation  of  the  present  is 
by  the  past,  and  that  the  record  of  by-gone  conditions 
casts  on  existing  conditions  a  light  that  nothing  else 
could  yield.  More  precisely,  it  exaggerates  and  pushes 
forward  unduly  the  equally  true  fact  that  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  past  is  complete  only  by  the  help  of  the  pres- 
ent. It  would  be  most  unfortunate  to  check  the  zeal  of 
those  who  are  submitting  present  language  to  the  most 
rigorous  investigation,  especially  on  its  phonetic  side,  or 
to  cast  the  slightest  reflection  on  the  deep  and  far-reach- 
ing value  of  their  work;  there  is  hardly  another  more 
promising  direction  of  linguistic  inquiry :  only  they,  on 
their  side,  should  refrain  from  impliedly  contemning 
their  predecessors,  and  should  realize  that  tliey  are  strik- 
ing in  now  when  the  way  is  prepared  for  making  their 


IMPORTANCE  OP  ITS  STUDY.  191 

labors  fruitful.  So  the  minute  study  of  the  customs, 
institutions,  beliefs,  and  myths  of  rude  peoples  now  ex- 
isting was,  not  long  ago,  comparatively  a  mere  matter 
of  curiosity ;  it  gains  its  most  valuable  bearing  from  the 
study  of  civilization  in  its  historical  development.  It 
was  of  little  use  to  watch  and  study  nebulce  until  geolo- 
gy and  astronomy  together  had  learned  so  much  about 
the  constitution  and  history  of  our  solar  system  as  to 
have  found  out  how  to  interpret  the  facts  observed. 

So  also,  in  the  claims  here  put  forth  as  to  the  pri- 
ority and  preeminence  of  the  Indo-European  tongues  as 
a  subject  of  linguistic  study,  there  is  nothing  which 
must  be  in  the  slightest  degree  understood  as  depreciat- 
ing the  importance  of  the  study  of  other  families,  even 
its  indispensability  to  the  comprehension  of  Indo-Euro- 
pean language  itself.  The  science  of  language  is  what 
its  name  implies,  a  study  of  all  human  speech,  of  every 
existing  and  recorded  dialect,  without  rejection  of  any, 
for  obscurity,  for  remoteness,  for  lowness  of  develop- 
ment. The  time  has  come  when  questions  are  rising 
in  abundance  in  the  history  of  Indo-European  speech 
which  cannot  possibly  be  answered  until  the  languages 
of  lower  organization  are  more  thoroughly  understood. 
And  it  must  be  distinctly  laid  down  as  a  fundamental 
principle  in  linguistics,  that  no  fact  in  human  expression 
is  fully  estimated,  until  it  is  seen  in  the  light  of  related 
facts  all  through  the  domain  of  universal  expression. 
Only,  it  is  not  possible,  in  philology  any  more  than  in 
other  branches  of  study,  to  help  letting  facts  arrange 
themselves  along  certain  leading  lines,  and  converge 
their  light  where  light  is  most  desired. 

We  have  reached,  as  was  seen  above,  the  certain 
conclusion  that  all  the  known  Indo-European  lan- 
guages are  descended  from  a  single  dialect,  which  must 


192  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

have  been  spoken  at  some  time  in  the  past  by  a  single 
limited  community,  by  the  spread  and  emigration  of 
which — not,  certainly,  without  incorporating  also  bodies 
of  other  races  than  that  to  which  itself  belonged  by  ori- 
gin— it  has  reached  its  present  wide  distribution :  even 
as  a  similar  process,  in  historical  times,  has  brought  its 
two  leading  modern  branches  to  fill  the  New  World,  a 
region  almost  vaster  than  that  which  it  occupies  in  the 
Old.  Of  course,  it  would  be  a  matter  of  the  highest 
interest  to  determine  the  place  and  period  of  this  im- 
portant community,  were  there  any  means  of  doing  so; 
but  that  is  not  the  ease,  at  least  at  present.  As  for  the 
time,  the  less  said  about  that  the  better,  in  this  transi- 
tional period  of  opinion  as  to  the  age  of  man  on  the 
earth.  The  question  wbether  the  first  man  was  born 
only  6,000  years  ago,  or  12,000,  or  100,000,  or  1,000,000, 
as  the  new  schools  of  anthropology  are  beginning  to 
claim,  is  one  of  which  the  decision  must  exercise  a  con- 
trolling influence  on  that  which  we  have  here  in  view. 
As  for  the  testimony  of  language  itself,  there  is  none, 
of  any  authority;  the  philologists  will  doubtless  claim 
that  they  do  not  see  how  to  compress  the  growth  of 
Indo-European  language  into  the  shortest  of  the  periods 
named,  but  they  have  not  yet  found  a  rule  with  which 
to  measure  the  time  they  actually  need.  To  give  even 
a  conjecture  at  present  would  be  foolish. 

Nor  is  the  place  perceptibly  easier  to  determine. 
Man  has  ever  been  a  migratory  animal,  and  if  he  has 
had  a  million  years,  or  a  tenth  part  of  the  number,  to 
wander  in,  it  must  be  next  to  impossible  to  fix  the 
starting-point  of  any  division  of  the  race.  How  little 
could  be  inferred  as  to  the  history  of  movement  of  the 
Celts  from  their  present  distribution !  If  some  barbar- 
ous race  had  conquered  and  exterminated  or  absorbed 


PLACE  OP  INDO-EUROPEAN  UNITY.  193 

the  Germans  of  the  continent,  what  erroneous  conclu- 
sions might  not  he  drawn  from  their  presence  only  in 
Scandinavia  and  Iceland !  And  there  are  probabilities 
of  just  as  baffling  occurrences  in  the  history  of  the  Indo- 
Europeans.  Men  have  long,  and  on  well-known  grounds, 
been  accustomed  to  look  upon  the  southwestern  part  of 
Asia  as  the  cradle  of  the  human  race;  and,  mainly  un- 
der the  influence  of  this  opinion,  so  long  rooted  that  it 
sways  the  minds  even  of  those  who  reject  the  authority 
of  the  testimony  on  which  it  is  founded,  it  is  by  many 
asserted  with  great  confidence  that  the  Hindu-Kush 
mountain-region,  or  that  Bactria,  is  the  Indo-European 
cradle :  the  only  bit  of  tangible  evidence  which  they  are 
able  to  allege  being  that  that  is  the  region  where  the 
Iranians  and  Indians  separated,  and  that  the  Iranian 
and  Indian  dialects  are  the  most  primitive  of  the  family. 
But  to  plead  this  is  equivalent  to  maintaining  that  slow- 
ness or  rapidity  of  change  in  language  is  dependent  on 
stability  or  change  of  place  in  the  speaking  community : 
which  is  so  grossly  wrong  that  it  needs  no  refutation.  In 
fact,  the  condition  of  these  languages  is  reconcilable 
with  any  possible  theory  as  to  the  original  site  of  the 
family.  As  to  the  interconnections  of  the  different 
branches  with  one  another,  the  best  scholars  have  for 
some  years  past  been  settling  down  upon  the  opinion  that 
the  separation  of  the  five  European  branches  from  one 
another  must  have  been  later  than  their  common  sepa- 
ration from  the  two  Asiatic  branches,  which  latter  then 
continued  to  exist  as  one  community  almost  down  to  the 
historical  period.  Upon  this  last  point,  there  is  unan- 
imity of  opinion ;  the  oldest  forms  of  Persian  and  Indian 
speech  are  as  closely  like  one  another  as,  for  instance, 
the  most  dissimilar  of  the  Germanic  dialects;  the  two 
branches  are  ranked  together  under  the  common  name 


194  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

of  "  Aryan ;  "  and  the  Indian  branch  is  thought  to  have 
parted  from  the  common  home  in  northeastern  Iran  not 
very  much  earlier  than  2000  b.  c.  Within  the  Euro- 
pean grand  division,  the  Germanic  and  Slavonic  are  by 
nearly  all  regarded  as  specially  related;  opinions  are 
more  nearly  divided  as  to  whether  the  Celtic  is  a  wholly 
independent  branch,  or  closely  akin  with  the  Italican. 
In  all  this  there  is  evidently  nothing  which  should  point 
our  eyes  definitely  toward  an  original  home.  The  sepa- 
ration of  Aryan  from  European  may  just  as  well  be  due 
to  a  spread  and  migration  of  the  former  into  Asia  as  of 
the  latter  into  Europe:  and  localities  in  Europe  as  well 
as  in  Asia  have  actually  been  pitched  upon  by  eminent 
scholars.  But  it  is  useless  to  pretend  to  come  to  a  ( 
definite  conclusion  where  the  data  are  so  indefinite,  j 
Evidences  of  real  weight  bearing  on  the  question  may 
possibly  yet  be  found;  but  certainly  none  such  have 
been  hitherto  brought  to  light. 

Owing  to  the  exceptional  abundance  of  the  material 
for  study  of  the  history  of  Indo-European  speech,  and 
the  amount  of  study  which  has  been  devoted  to  it,  it  is 
far  better  understood  than  is  the  history  of  any  other 
division  of  human  language.  Partly,  therefore,  because 
of  the  high  intrinsic  interest  of  the  subject,  and  partly 
as  a  standard  of  reference  in  the  treatment  of  the  struct- 
ural growth  of  other  languages,  we  have  to  follow  out 
in  a  little  detail,  though  still  with  all  possible  brevity, 
the  ascertained  history  of  the  common  foundation  of  the 
Indo-European  languages. 

But  we  have  first  to  consider  the  question — if,  in- 
deed, it  can  be  called  a  question — as  to  how  the  prehis- 
torical  periods  of  language  are  to  be  investigated.  Not 
even  the  Indo-European  has  more  than  a  small  part  of 
its  history  illustrated  by  contemporary  documents :  how 


METHOD  OF   PREHISTORIC  STUDY.  195 

are  we  to  learn  anything  beyond  the  point  where  the 
records  fail  us?  The  answer,  it  is  believed,  is  a  plain 
and  a  confident  one :  we  have  to  study  the  forces  at 
work  under  our  observation,  and  the  methods  of  their 
working;  and  we  have  to  carry  them  back  into  the  past 
by  careful  analogical  reasoning,  inferring  from  similar 
effects  to  similar  causes,  just  as  far  as  the  process  can  be 
made  to  work  legitimately,  never  assuming  new  forces 
and  modes  of  action  except  where  the  old  ones  are  abso- 
lutely incapable  of  furnishing  the  explanation  we  are 
seeking — and,  even  then,  only  under  the  most  careful 
restrictions.  This  is  the  familiar  method  of  the  modern 
inductive  sciences ;  and  its  applicability  to  the  science  of 
language  also  is  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt.  The  paral- 
lel between  linguistics  and  geology,  the  most  historical 
of  the  physical  sciences,  is  here  closest  and  most  instruc- 
tive; and  it  has  often  been  resorted  to  for  illustration. 
The  geologist  infers  the  mode  of  formation  of  ancient 
sandstones  and  conglomerates  from  that  of  modern  sand- 
banks and  gravel  and  pebble-beds;  and  so  on,  through 
the  whole  series  of  strata,  sedimentary  and  eruptive;  he 
accounts  for  the  occurrence  of  fossils  by  the  engulfing 
or  burying  of  extant  species.  And  the  true  geologic 
method  has  been  so  thoroughly  worked  out,  and  is  so 
strictly  applied,  that  the  scientific  man  who  abandons  it, 
and  resorts  to  arbitrary  hypotheses,  even  to  account  for 
facts  which  for  the  time  seem  unexplainable  by  ordi- 
nary means,  is  at  once  put  down  as  "  unscientific,"  and 
bidden  to  wait  until  the  growth  of  knowledge  shall 
bring  around  the  possibility  of  solving  his  problem, 
if  it  shall  finally  be  found  soluble,  in  an  admissible 
way. 

Of  course,  the  circumstances  and  conditions  of  action 
of  the  same  forces  may  differ  greatly.  The  admission 


196  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

of  the  unity  of  geologic  history  by  no  means  implies 
that  the  earth  has  always  worn  the  same  aspect  as  at 
present;  it  is  even  a  prevailing  opinion  among  geolo- 
gists that  the  whole  solar  system  was  once  a  nebulous 
mass  of  whirling  vapor;  but  this  result  is  reached  by 
the  inductive  method.  The  essential  unity  of  linguistic 
history,  in  all  its  phases  and  stages,  must  be  made  the 
cardinal  principle  of  the  study  of  language,  if  this  is  to 
bear  a  scientific  character.  To  assume  outright,  as  some 
do,  either  explicitly  or  impliedly,  that  ancient  modes  of 
language-making  were  and  must  have  been  different 
from  modern,  and  that  the  former  are  not  to  be  judged 
by  the  latter,  would,  if  linguistic  science  were  as  ma- 
tured and  well-established  a  branch  of  study  as  geology, 
be  enough  to  exclude  the  assumer  from  the  ranks  of 
scientific  linguists.  Here,  again,  the  difference  of  con- 
ditions, of  the  grade  of  historic  development,  has  to  be 
fully  allowed  for;  and  the  student  may  arrive  at  the 
recognition  of  a  primitive  condition  of  language  to 
which  the  present  is  as  unlike  as  a  civilized  country, 
teeming  with  the  public  and  private  works  of  its  inhab- 
itants, is  unlike  the  wilderness  through  which  the  sav- 
age roams ;  or  even  as  the  existing  cosmos  is  unlike  the 
nebulous  chaos;  yet  the  present  must  be  regarded  as 
the  consequence  of  a  gradual  accumulation  of  results  in 
one  unbroken  line  of  action.  We  must  beware,  too,  of 
claiming  that  we  understand  the  present  forces  and  their 
action  in  all  points  so  thoroughly  that  we  can  judge  the 
past  by  them  completely,  or  even  that  processes  which 
would  now  strike  us  as  anomalous  may  not  come  here- 
after to  appear  regular;  but  we  are  authorized  to  refuse 
to  admit  them  until  a  clear  case  shall  be  made  out  in 
their  favor ;  they  are  never  to  be  granted  as  postulates. 
Now  we  have  seen  above,  in  the  chapters  devoted  to 


SYNTHETIC  FORM-MAKING.  197 

detailed  examination  of  the  changes  of  language,  that 
the  general  effort  of  language-making  is  toward  the  pro- 
vision of  expression,  for  the  needs  of  communication 
and  the  uses  of  thought,  by  such  means  as  lie  most  avail- 
ably at  hand;  that  a  prominent  part  of  the  movement 
is  the  reduction  of  coarser  and  more  physical,  material, 
sensible  designations  to  finer  and  more  formal  uses,  both 
by  constant  shifts  of  meaning,  by  the  attenuation  of 
words  once  of  full  material  meaning  to  the  value  of 
form-words,  and  by  the  conversion  of  words  formerly 
independent  into  formative  elements,  suffixes  and  pre- 
fixes, signs  of  modified  meaning  or  of  relation  attached 
to  and  forming  part  of  other  words.  In  the  earliest 
traceable  condition  of  our  language,  the  use  of  forma- 
tive elements  was  the  prevailing  means  of  denoting 
relations,  so  much  so  as  to  constitute  the  distinctive 
characteristic  of  the  common  Indo-European  language; 
and  to  explain  this  feature  is  to  explain  Indo-European 
growth. 

It  was  in  the  simple  practice  of  composition  that  we 
found  (p.  120  seq.)  the  germ  of  synthetic  form-making; 
and  we  noticed  a  number  of  real  forms  as  made  by  this 
means,  with  the  help  of  only  those  tendencies  which  are 
universally  prevalent  in  human  speech.  The  adverbial 
endings  ly  and  (French)  ment,  the  tense-signs  d  and 
(French)  ai,  the  derivative  suffixes  less  and  dom,  and  so 
on,  are,  in  all  respects,  precisely  as  true  and  as  good  for- 
mative elements  as  anything  in  Indo-European  speech; 
it  is  only  the  historical  student,  not  the  speaker,  who 
knows  them  as  different  from  the  s  of  loves  and  the  th 
of  truth,  which  go  back  for  their  origin  to  a  period 
greatly  remote  in  comparison.  And  all  form-making 
of  which  we  know  anything  in  the  historical  period  is 
of  this  same  kind,  by  external  accretion;  all  the  cases 


198  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

of  an  apparently  different  character  (we  exemplified 
them  by  man  and  men,  read  and  read,  sing  and  sang) 
being  demonstrably  inorganic,  accidental,  results  of  the 
putting  to  use  of  a  difference  of  secondary  value, 
wrought  out  by  phonetic  change  from  forms  originally 
made  by  concretion. 

This  being  so,  we  are  required  by  the  principles  of 
inductive  investigation  to  endeavor  to  make  this  sole 
recognizable  method  of  formation  found  active  in  his- 
torical times  explain  the  growth  of  Indo-European  lan- 
guage in  the  ancient  times.  If  it  is  sufficient,  we  are 
not  only  not  called  upon,  but  actually  forbidden,  to 
bring  in  any  other  method  to  aid;  or,  at  any  rate,  noth- 
ing but  the  most  direct  and  cogent  evidence  can  have 
the  right  to  compel  our  admission  of  any  other.  And 
such  evidence  is  by  no  means  to  be  found  in  our  simple 
inability  to  trace  any  given  element  or  elements,  or  even 
a  great  many  such,  to  the  independent  words  out  of 
which  they  grew,  and  to  describe  the  series  of  changes 
of  form  and  meaning  which  converted  the  one  into  the 
other.  The  linguistic  record  is  too  hopelessly  frag- 
mentary for  that.  As  every  period  in  the  changeful 
life  of  the  earth  denudes  or  covers  up  or  dislocates  a 
part  of  the  record  of  geological  succession,  so  the 
changes  of  every  age  contribute  to  break  the  continu- 
ity of  linguistic  succession,  in  every  part — in  the  trans- 
fers of  meaning,  in  the  formation  of  words,  in  the 
making  of  means  of  derivation.  While  there  is  so  much 
in  the  peculiar  and  recent  formations  of  even  the  Ger- 
manic and  Eomanic  languages  that  baffles  the  inquirer 
and  seems  to  defy  explanation,  it  would  be  most  un- 
reasonable to  expect  that  words  and  forms  of  vastly 
more  ancient  growth  will  be  completely  and  in  all  parts 
amenable  to  analysis.     If  we  can  find  any  trustworthy 


PRIMITIVE   ROOT-PERIOD.  199 

evidences  of  the  operation  of  the  method  of  combina- 
tion in  the  earliest  synthetic  forms,  we  have  the  right 
to  assume  it,  in  default  of  proof  to  the  contrary,  to 
have  been  the  sole  operative  principle,  then  as  well  as 
later. 

And  it  is  claimed  by  the  leading  school  of  compara- 
tive philology  that  the  principle  in  question  is  actually 
sufficient  to  account  for  the  whole  structure  of  Indo- 
European  language;  that  the  latter  presents  no  forms 
which  demand  the  admission  of  any  other  genesis  than 
by  addition  of  element  to  element;  that  wherever,  by 
our  analytical  processes,  we  succeed  in  detaching  from  a 
word  a  subordinate  part,  indicating  some  modification 
or  relation  of  a  radical  idea,  there  we  are  to  recognize 
the  trace  of  a  formerly  independent  word,  which  has 
lost  its  independence  and  become  an  affix,  by  the  same 
processes  which  have  made  love-did  into  loved,  true-like 
into  truly,  habere  habeo  into  aurai,  vera  mente  into  vrai- 
ment,  and  so  on. 

But  in  this  doctrine  is  involved  another  very  impor- 
tant one:  that,  namely,  of  a  primitive  body  of  mono- 
syllabic roots  as  the  historical  beginnings  of  Indo- 
European  speech-development.  Its  necessity  as  a  corol- 
lary from  the  former  is  clear  enough:  if  all  formative 
elements  come  by  accretion  and  integration,  then  only 
that  can  have  been  original  which  is  left  when  these 
have  been  stripped  off,  to  the  very  last  one :  and  what 
is  left  is  the  root;  and  it  is,  in  our  family  of  language, 
a  monosyllable.  This  is  the  doctrine  actually  held  by 
most  students  of  language;  the  dissidents  are  few,  and 
have  nothing  to  say,  in  defense  of  their  unbelief,  ex- 
cept what  is  easily  refuted  as  misapprehension  or  want 
of  logical  consistency.  Though  at  first  sight  repellent 
to  some,  it  involves  nothing  that  has  a  right  to  trouble 


y 


1/ 


200  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

the  scientific  inquirer,  any  more  than  the  acceptance  of 
a  primitive  state  of  rudeness  with  reference  to  the  arts 
of  life  or  the  condition  of  knowledge.  And  as  there 
are  races  now  living  on  the  earth  which  have  never 
gained  command  of  more  than  the  simplest  tools,  modes 
of  dress  and  shelter,  and  the  like,  so  (as  we  shall  see 
more  particularly  in  the  twelfth  chapter)  there  are  those 
which  have  never  developed  their  language  out  of  this 
radical  stage.  If  we  see  in  later  times  conjugational 
and  declensional  inflections  formed  and  brought  into 
use,  there  can  be  no  invincible  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
our  reasoning  back  to  a  time  when  such  things  did  not 
exist;  if  we  see  parts  of  speech  like  prepositions,  con- 
junctions, and  articles  coming  into  being,  we  may  regard 
as  possible  a  period  when  the  first  distinction  of  parts  of 
speech  was  made.  Whether  such  possibilities  were  ever 
realities,  is  a  matter  to  be  determined  by  sufficient  scien- 
tific evidence. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  this  doctrine  does  not  commit 
us  to  the  recognition  of  any  actually  traceable  list  of 
roots  as  being  the  beginnings  of  development  in  our 
family.  If  it  shall  be  shown  hereafter — as  it  is  already 
shown,  or  at  least  made  probable,  with  regard  to  some — 
that  any  of  the  elements  now  generally  regarded  as  roots 
are  of  composite  structure,  containing  a  formative  ele- 
ment fused  with  a  root  (as  in  our  count,  cost,  preach, 
etc.,  noticed  above,  p.  55),  this  will  only  push  the  name 
and  quality  of  roots  one  step  further  back.  The  firm 
foundation  of  the  theory  of  roots  lies  in  its  logical  ne- 
cessity as  an  inference  from  the  doctrine  of  the  histori- 
cal growth  of  grammatical  apparatus.  It  is  to  be  no- 
ticed further  that  the  question  of  roots  as  the  histori- 
cal beginnings  of  language  is  quite  distinct  from  tbat 
of  the  origin  of  language,  which  we  do  not  take  up  until 


ROOTS.  201 

later  (fourteenth  chapter)  :  the  one  is  exclusively  lin- 
guistic, the  other  partly  anthropological. 

The  Indo-European  roots,  then,  are  the  elements  of 
speech  which  existed  prior  to  the  whole  development  of 
the  means  of  grammatical  distinction,  before  the  growth 
of  inflection,  before  the  separation  of  the  parts  of 
speech.  They  indicated  each  some  conception  in  entire 
indefiniteness  as  concerns  its  relations,  neither  viewed 
as  the  concrete  name  of  an  object,  nor  as  attribute  only, 
nor  as  predicate;  but  as  equally  ready  to  turn  to  the 
purpose  of  any  of  the  three.  This  is  a  state  of  things 
which  we,  with  our  habits  of  speech  and  thought,  find 
it  very  hard  to  realize,  but  which  is  brought  compara- 
tively within  reach  of  our  apprehension  by  making 
acquaintance  with  existing  tongues  of  a  low  grade  of 
development.  The  roots,  however,  are  not  all  of  one 
homogeneous  class;  there  is  a  little  body  of  so-called 
pronominal  or  demonstrative  roots  which  are  distin- 
guished from  the  rest  as  signifying  position  or  direction 
with  reference  to  the  speaker,  rather  than  any  more 
concrete  quality.  They  are  very  few,  and  of  the  sim- 
plest phonetic  form:  a  vowel  only,  or  a  consonant  with 
following  vowel.  That  they  are  ultimately  distinct 
from  the  roots  of  the  other  class,  and  were  not  rather 
developed  out  of  these  by  attenuation  of  meaning,  as 
form-words  in  the  later  stages  of  language-history,  many 
students  of  language  are  very  loath  to  believe,  and  not 
without  reason;  but  the  distinction  is  one  which  must, 
it  seems,  at  any  rate  be  admitted  as  antecedent  to  the 
whole  growth  of  Indo-European  forms;  nor  have  the 
attempts  to  identify  the  one  class  with  the  other  been 
as  yet  at  all  successful.  The  point  is  one  of  which  the 
complete  solution  will  probably  be  possible  only  when 

the  languages  of  lower  order  shall  have  come  to  be  more 
14 


202  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

widely  and  deeply  understood;  perhaps  the  early  devel- 
opment of  such  a  class  of  form-words  was  the  first  sign 
of  that  linguistic  aptitude  which  has  always  distin- 
guished this  family,  and  prepared  the  way  for  its  after- 
evolutiorj.  The  other  class,  commonly  called  verbal  or 
predicative  roots,  were  significant  in  general  of  such 
acts  and  qualities  as  are  apprehensible  by  the  senses, 
and  were  much  more  numerous,  counting  by  hundreds: 
examples  are  sia  (Greek  t'<xT7;/u,  Lat.  stare,  our  'stand/ 
etc.),  da,  '  give  '  (SiSoofMi,  dare),  par,  '  pass  '  {irepaw,  ex- 
per-ior,  fahren,  fare,  etc.),  void, '  see  '  (olBa,  video,  weiss, 
wot,  etc.),  and  so  on. 

An  early  (perhaps  the  first)  and  most  important  act 
in  the  history  of  linguistic  development  out  of  these 
rather  scanty  beginnings  was  that  whereby  a  separation 
was  made  between  noun  (substantive  and  adjective)  and 
verb.  The  essence  of  a  verb  is  that  it  predicates  or 
asserts;  and  the  establishment  of  a  distinct  form  by 
which  predication  shall  be  signified  has  by  no  means 
been  reached  in  all  languages.  There  are  many  tongues 
which  do  not  formally  distinguish  giving  (adjective  or 
substantive)  and  gift  from  gives:  they  put  the  subject 
and  predicate  side  by  side,  as  '  he  giver,'  '  he  good,'  and 
leave  the  mind  to  supply  the  lacking  copula.  The  mak- 
ing of  a  verb  is  nothing  more  than  the  establishment 
of  certain  combinations  of  elements  in  an  exclusively 
predicative  use,  the  supplying  of  a  copula  in  connection 
with  them  and  not  with  others.  This  was  accomplished 
by  adding  certain  pronominal  elements  to  the  verbal 
element :  da-mi,  da-si,  dd-ti;  the  former  having  al- 
ready gained  at  least  a  quasi-personal  significance,  as 
designating  that  which  is  nearer  or  remoter.  Precisely 
how  we  shall  explain  da-mi,  for  instance — whether  as 
meaning  more  'give  I,'  or  'giving  (adj.)  I,'  or  'giving 


VERBAL  FORMS.  203 

(subst.)  mine/  or  'giving  here' — seems  a  matter  not 
worth  contending  about;  since,  at  the  period  in  ques- 
tion, noun  and  adjective  and  verb  were  equally  present 
in  the  one  element,  and  pronoun  and  adverb  in  the 
other ;  and  there  was  as  yet  no  distinction  of  '  I '  and 
*  mine.'  The  combinations  adduced  above  gave  three 
verbal  persons:  they  were  made  exclusively  singular  in 
number  by  the  addition  of  a  plural  and  a  dual,  most 
often  explained  (though  very  doubtfully)  as  formed 
by  a  composition  of  pronominal  elements  in  the  end- 
ing :  masi,  for  example,  being  ma-si  '  I  [and]  you,'  i.  e. 
'  we.'  The  forms  thus  made  contained  no  implication 
of  time,  were  not  properly  a  "  tense ;  "  but  a  past  was 
by-and-by  made  by  prefixing  an  adverbial  element,  the 
"  augment "  of  the  Greek,  pointing  to  a  '  then '  as  ad- 
junct of  the  action :  a-da-mi,  ' then  give  I,'  i.e.  'I 
gave ; '  and  the  form,  by  reason  of  the  accented  addition 
at  the  beginning,  was  shortened  at  the  end,  to  a  dam 
(Skt.  dddm,  Gr.  eScov) — whence  the  distinction  between 
secondary  and  primary  endings,  conspicuous  in  some  of 
the  languages  of  the  family.  But  yet  another  tense,  of 
completed  action,  was  made  by  reduplication  or  repeti- 
tion of  the  root :  dd-dd-mi,  '  give-give  1/  i.  e.  'I  have 
given '  (the  reduplication  being  then  variously  abbre- 
viated) ;  and  this  in  Latin  and  Germanic  has  become  the 
general  preterit,  the  augment-tense  having  been  lost; 
our  sang,  held,  etc.,  are  its  descendants.  As  handed 
down  to  us,  however,  few  of  the  "  present "  tenses  of 
Indo-European  verbs  are  of  the  simple  formation  above 
illustrated ;  more  usually,  the  root  appears  in  some  way 
extended,  either  by  another  reduplication  (Skt.  daddmi, 
Gr.  BtSm/ju) ,  or  by  the  addition  of  sundry  formative 
elements  (Lat.  cer-no,  cre-sco,  Gr.  Sd/jL-v-rj-fxt,  8e{K-vu-fi^ 
etc.,  etc.)  :  all  of  them  supposed  to  have  been  at  first 


204  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

moans  employed  for  denoting  the  continuousness  of  an 
action,  like  our  am  giving,  though  they  later  lost  their 
restriction  to  this  sense.  In  some  verbs,  along  with  the 
new  present  and  its  continuous  preterit  or  proper  "  im- 
perfect," the  preterit  and  moods  of  the  simpler  root 
were  retained  in  use,  with  a  more  undefined  past  mean- 
ing, becoming  the  Greek  (and  Sanskrit)  "second  aor- 
ist  "  (as  eBcov,  dddm,  beside  imperfect  ehihcov,  ddaddm). 
For  other  verbs,  a  tense  of  like  value  was  formed  by  help 
of  a  sibilant,  s,  of  doubtful  origin,  making  what  is 
called  in  Greek  the  first  aorist.  Besides  these,  a  fu- 
ture, also  containing  the  same  sibilant  sign,  was 
made  before  the  separation  of  the  branches,  and  is  best 
retained  in  Greek  and  Sanskrit;  the  full  form  of  its 
suffix  is  sya:  Sanskrit  dd-sya-mi,  Greek  Bcoaco  (or  older 
Sgmtico),  '  I  will  give.'  There  were  some  imperative 
persons,  with  no  special  mood-sign,  but  with  peculiar 
endings.  Of  other  moods,  there  were  a  subjunctive 
and  an  optative,  marked  by  insertions  between  root  and 
ending,  of  somewhat  doubtful  character.  Then,  finally, 
there  was  a  reflexive  or  "  middle  "  voice  for  all  these 
various  forms,  with  its  characteristic  in  the  personal 
endings  themselves :  an  extension  of  them,  prevailingly 
(but  hardly  successfully)  explained  as  a  repetition,  once 
with  subjective,  once  with  objective. 

This  appears  to  have  been  the  entire  fabric  of  the 
Indo-European  verb  prior  to  the  separation  of  the 
branches.  It  has  been  variously  preserved,  contracted, 
expanded,  in  the  later  history  of  the  branches.  The 
Sanskrit  has  preserved  most  faithfully  the  outward 
forms;  the  Greek  has  best  retained  the  original  uses, 
and  has  added  most,  so  that  its  verb  is  far  the  richest 
in  the  family.  The  Latin  lost  much,  but  added  a  great 
variety  of  modern  formations.     The  Germanic  lost  all 


NOUN  AND  ADJECT 

/      v'o    - 

save  present  and  perfect,  with  their  optative  (called  -by 
us  subjunctive),  and  with  the  imperative;  apart  fjibm 
the  preterit  with  did,  often  already  referred  to,  its  new 
additions  have  been  made  in  the  way  of  analytic  com- 
bination. To  follow  out  further  the  details  of  the  verb- 
history,  interesting  as  the  task  would  be,  would  take  us 
too  long. 

The  genesis  of  the  noun  as  a  part  of  speech,  in  its 
two  forms,  substantive  and  adjective,  was  implied  in 
that  of  the  verb :  when  one  set  of  forms  became  dis- 
tinctly verb,  the  rest  were  left  as  noun.  And  every- 
thing in  Indo-European  speech  from  predicative  roots 
is  by  origin  either  verb  or  noun,  a  form  either  of  con- 
jugation or  of  declension.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fur- 
ther we  go  back,  the  less  are  substantive  and  adjective 
distinguished  from  one  another;  they  are  made  by  the 
same  suffixes,  they  share  the  same  inflection :  things,  in 
fact,  are  named  from  their  qualities;  and  whether  the 
quality-denoting  word  shall  be  used  attributively  or 
appellatively  is  at  the  outset  a  matter  of  comparative 
indifference;  though  the  two  come  finally  to  be  distinct 
enough.  The  characteristic  of  the  noun  is  the  case-end- 
ing, as  that  of  the  verb  is  the  personal  ending;  case 
and  number  are  to  the  noun  what  person  and  number 
are  to  the  verb,  fitting  it  to  enter  into  definite  relations 
in  the  sentence.  The  Indo-European  cases  are  seven, 
besides  the  vocative,  which  is  not  a  case  in  the  same 
sense  with  the  rest,  since  it  stands  in  no  syntactical 
relation  with  anything  else.  The  accusative  is  the  to- 
case,  marking  that  toward  which  the  action  of  the  verb 
is  immediately  directed,  and  hence  becoming  also  the 
case  of  the  direct  object;  the  ablative  is  the  from-case; 
the  locative,  the  at-  or  m-case;  the  instrumental,  that  of 
adjacency   or   accompaniment,   then   of   instrument   or 


206  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

means — the  by-case,  in  both  senses  of  by.  Then  the 
dative  is  the  for-ca&e,  and  the  genitive  the  o/-case,  that 
of  general  relation  or  concernment.  The  nominative, 
finally,  is  the  case  of  the  subject,  and  its  ending,  so  far 
as  at  present  appears,  more  formal  than  that  of  any 
of  the  others;  the  vocative  is  most  often  accordant 
with  it,  and  has,  at  any  rate,  no  inflectional  sign  of  its 
own. 

The  subject  of  the  genesis  of  the  case-endings  is 
much  more  obscure  than  the  history  of  the  verb.  The 
genitive  suffixes  show  most  signs  of  kindred  with  the 
ordinary  suffixes  of  derivation.  Pronominal  elements 
seem  clearly  visible  among  some  of  the  rest;  but  every 
point  is  too  doubtful  to  allow  of  summary  presentment; 
and  for  more  than  this  there  would  be  no  room  here. 
How  the  distinctions  of  number  are  combined  with 
those  of  case  is  by  no  means  plain;  the  endings  of  sin- 
gular, dual,  and  plural  have  the  air  of  being  indepen- 
dent of  one  another,  nor  are  there  demonstrable  indica- 
tors of  number,  such  as  in  languages  of  lower  type  are 
often  found  inserted  between  theme  and  ending.  Yet 
the  earliest  language  is  mainly  free  from  that  diversity 
of  modes  of  inflection  according  to  which,  in  the  middle 
period,  words  are  arranged  in  different  "  declensions." 
First,  uniformity,  at  least  approximate,  of  declension  in 
all  words;  then  correspondence  in  the  declension  of 
themes  having  the  same  final ;  then,  the  characteristic 
finals  being  lost,  a  confusion  of  declensions — such  has 
been  the  general  history  of  development. 

One  more  matter  of  distinction,  that  of  gender,  is 
so  mixed  up  with  those  of  case  and  number  as  not  to  be 
completely  separable  from  them.  The  problem  of  the 
t  reatment  of  this  element  in  Indo-European  language  is 
still  very  far  from  being  completely  solved.     Its  foun- 


GENDER.  207 

elation  appears  to  lie  in  the  distinction  of  sex  among 
those  creatures  which  have  conspicuous  sex;  but  such 
constitute  only  an  exceedingly  small  part  of  the  crea- 
tion; and  the  distinctions  of  gender  involve  everything 
that  exists,  and  in  a  manner  which  is  only  in  the  small- 
est part  accordant  with  natural  sex.  The  world  of  un- 
traceably  sexual  or  of  unsexual  objects  is  not,  as  with 
us,  relegated  to  the  indifferent  "  neuter ;  "  great  classes 
of  names  are  masculine  or  feminine  partly  by  poetical 
analogy,  by  an  imaginary  estimate  of  their  distinctive 
qualities  as  like  those  of  the  one  or  the  other  sex  in  the 
higher  animals,  especially  man;  partly  by  grammatical 
analogy,  by  resemblance  in  formation  to  words  of  gen- 
der already  established.  At  any  rate,  in  the  common 
Indo-European  period,  all  or  nearly  all  attributive  words 
were  inflected  in  three  somewhat  varying  modes,  to  in- 
dicate generic  distinctions;  and  the  names  of  things 
followed  one  or  other  of  these  modes,  and  were  mas- 
culine or  feminine  or  neuter.  The  distinction  was 
partly  in  the  case-ending,  partly  in  the  derivative  theme 
or  base,  though  there  was  hardly  a  suffix,  derivative 
or  inflectional,  that  was  rigidly  of  one  gender  only;  it 
was  most  marked  as  characterizing  the  feminine;  mas- 
culine and  neuter  were  hardly  separated  except  in  the 
nominative  and  accusative  cases. 

The  noun-inflection  was  shared  also  by  the  pronouns, 
in  all  the  three  varieties  of  case,  number,  and  gender. 
In  those  demonstrative  words,  however,  which  acquired 
a  specific  personal  character,  as  denoting  the  speaker 
and  the  spoken-to,  gender  was  undistinguished.  And 
the  words  of  pronominal  origin  exhibit  certain  irregu- 
larities of  inflection,  different  from  those  of  the  general 
mass  of  nouns. 

Although  a  case-ending  of  itself  makes  a  noun,  and 


208  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

there  are  many  primitive  Indo-European  nouns  which 
are  made  by  such  alone,  the  great  mass  of  them  have 
other  elements  interposed  between  root  and  ending, 
which  we  call  suffixes  of  derivation;  and  these  even 
come,  in  time,  to  be  divided  into  two  well-marked 
classes :  primary,  or  such  as  are  appended  directly  to 
verbal  roots;  and  secondary,  or  such  as  are  added  only 
after  other  derivative  endings.  Of  these,  likewise,  too 
few  among  the  most  ancient  ones  are  recognizable  in 
their  independent  character,  and  traceable  through  their 
changes  of  application,  to  allow  of  our  illustrating  here 
the  method  of  their  growth.  But  though  the  subject 
is  full  of  obscurity  in  its  details,  there  is  no  mystery  in 
the  principles  involved:  the  processes  which  have 
formed  modern  suffixes  are  fully  capable  of  having  pro- 
duced also  the  ancient  ones. 

As  the  two  sides  of  meaning  and  application  in  the 
predicative  or  verbal  roots  are  verb  and  noun,  so  in  the 
demonstrative  (which  do  not  make  verbs)  the  two  sides 
may  be  said  to  be  pronoun  and  adverb.  From  the  latter 
class  come  those  earliest  words  of  place  and  direction, 
readily  convertible  also  into  words  of  time,  which  are 
of  adverbial  quality.  Yet  even  these  appear  to  be  origi- 
nally and  properly  case-forms  of  pronouns :  and,  in  fact, 
there  is  no  fundamental  distinction  to  be  recognized  be- 
tween adverbial  suffixes  and  case-endings.  Moreover, 
the  class  of  adverbs,  after  being  established  as  a  class, 
continues  to  receive  accessions  of  case-forms,  through 
its  whole  history,  down  to  the  latest,  from  which  we 
have  already  drawn  examples  (pp.  41,  122).  Prepo- 
sitions, in  our  sense  of  the  term,  are  of  yet  more  re- 
cent origin,  created  a  separate  part  of  speech  by  the 
swinging  away  of  certain  adverbs  from  apprehended 
relation  to  the  verb,  and  their  connection  in  idea  with 


PARTICLES  AND  INTERJECTIONS.  209 

the  noun-cases  which  their  addition  to  the  verb  had 
caused  to  be  construed  with  it.  We  see  them  coming 
into  distinct  existence  in  the  oldest  languages  of  the 
family,  as  the  Sanskrit;  and  their  increase  of  number 
and  consequence  ever  since  is  apparent.  Conjunctions, 
though  we  nowhere  find  them  absolutely  wanting,  are 
of  secondary  origin,  being  among  the  most  characteristic 
products  of  the  historical  development  of  speech.  To 
be  able  to  put  clauses  together  into  periods,  with  due 
determination  of  their  relation  to  one  another,  is  a  step 
beyond  the  power  to  put  words  alike  determinately  to- 
gether into  clauses. 

These  are  the  Indo-European  "  parts  of  speech :  " 
that,  is  to  say,  the  main  classes  of  words,  having  restrict- 
ed application  and  definite  connection,  into  which  the 
holophrastic  ('  equivalent  to  a  whole  phrase  ')  utterances 
of  a  primitive  time  have  by  degrees  become  divided; 
the  separated  parts,  members,  of  what  was  once  an  un- 
distinguished whole.  But  there  is  one  other  class,  the 
interjections,  which  are  not  in  the  same  and  the  proper 
sense  a  "  part  of  speech ;  "  which  are,  rather,  analogous 
with  those  all-comprehending  signs  out  of  which  the 
rest  have  come  by  evolution.  A  typical  interjection  is 
the  mere  spontaneous  utterance  of  a  feeling,  capable  of 
being  paraphrased  into  a  good  set  expression  for  what 
it  intimates :  thus,  an  ah !  or  an  oh !  may  mean,  accord- 
ing to  its  tone,  '  I  am  hurt,'  or  '  am  surprised,'  or  '  am 
pleased,'  and  so  on;  only  there  is  no  part  of  it  which 
means  one  of  the  elements  of  the  statement  while 
another  part  means  another.  Yet,  such  creatures  of 
conventional  habit  in  regard  to  expression  have  we  be- 
come by  our  long  use  of  the  wholly  conventional  ap- 
paratus of  language,  that  even  our  exclamations  have 
generally  a  conventional  character,  and  shade  off  into 


210  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

exclamatory  utterance  of  ordinary  terras.  A  man's  feel- 
ings must  be  very  keenly  touched  in  order  to  draw  out 
of  him  a  purely  natural  interjection,  in  which  absolute- 
ly no  trace  of  the  acquired  habits  of  his  community 
shall  be  perceptible.  And  the  interjectional  employ- 
ment of  common  words,  or  of  incomplete  phrases,  is  a 
very  common  thing  in  the  general  use  of  speech;  emo- 
tion or  eagerness  causing  the  usual  set  framework  of  the 
sentence,  the  combination  of  subject  and  predicate,  to 
be  thrown  aside,  and  the  conspicuous  or  emphatic  ele- 
ments to  be  presented  alone — a  real  abnegation  of  the 
historical  development  which,  under  the  growing  do- 
minion of  consciousness  over  instinct  and  of  reason  over 
passion,  has  wrought  the  sentence  out  of  the  root. 

In  this  too  brief  and  imperfect  sketch  of  the  history 
of  Indo-European  speech,  no  attempt  has  been  made  to 
define  the  order  in  which  the  parts  of  the  inflectional 
development  followed  one  another.  Success  is  not  to  be 
hoped  for  in  any  such  attempt  until  the  history  of  less 
highly  developed  and  of  almost  undeveloped  languages 
shall  be  far  better  understood  than  it  is  at  present. 
For,  to  reason  these  matters  out  on  Indo-European 
ground  alone  is  at  any  rate  impossible:  the  period  lies 
too  far  back,  its  evidences  are  too  fragmentary  and 
difficult  of  interpretation;  we  are  not  competent  to 
judge  them.  As  to  the  impossibility  of  determining 
the  absolute  time  occupied  by  the  history,  enough,  per- 
haps, has  been  already  said:  that  it  should  have  taken 
less  than  a  very  long  time,  there  is  no  reason  whatever 
for  believing.  The  whole  was  a  series  of  successive 
steps,  of  which  one  led  to  another  and  these  to  yet 
others;  a  growth  of  habits  which  were  in  themselves 
capacities  also;  and  each  step,  the  formation  of  each 
habit,  was  a  work  of  time,  not  less  in  the  olden  time 


SYNTHESIS  AND  ANALYSIS.  211 

than  it  would  have  to  be  in  the  modern  period :  though 
whether  a  work  of  not  less  time,  we  can  hardly  venture 
to  say,  since  the  rate  of  growth  may  fall  under  the  gov- 
ernment of  conditions  which  we  cannot,  as  yet,  fully 
appreciate. 

There  has  also  been,  so  far  as  synthetic  structure  is 
concerned,  an  evident  climax,  followed  by  an  anti-cli- 
max, in  this  history.  During  the  immense  prehistoric 
period,  and  prior  to  the  separation  of  the  branches  from 
one  another,  the  inflectional  system  of  the  noun,  and 
less  distinctly  that  of  the  verb,  reached  a  fullness  which 
has  since  undergone  a  gradual  reduction.  Not  that 
there  has  been  generally  a  diminution  of  ability  to  ex- 
press distinctions ;  but  means  of  another  kind  have  been 
more  and  more  resorted  to :  auxiliaries,  form- words,  in- 
stead of  suffixes,  formative  elements  in  words;  and 
these  later  means  we  are  accustomed  to  call  analytic,  as 
distinguished  from  synthetic.  He  might  have  loved 
and  he  will  be  loved,  as  contrasted  with  their  Latin 
"equivalents  amavisset  and  amabitur,  may  be  taken  as 
typical  examples  of  the  two  modes  of  expression.  This 
fact  has  been  adduced  as  evidence  against  an  original 
radical  condition  of  language,  by  some  scholars,  who 
prefer  to  assume  a  primitive  period  of  excessive  poly- 
syllabism.  But  with  evident  injustice;  the  argument 
would  be  a  good  one  only  if  no  such  thing  as  the  mak- 
ing of  forms  were  known  in  language,  but  only  their 
wearing-out  and  loss.  If  we  see  how  collocation  and 
combination  and  integration  and  mutilation  and  cor- 
ruption all  work  in  succession  on  the  same  material  in 
every  part  of  language,  producing  forms  and  destroying 
them  again,  it  is  plainly  within  the  competency  of  the 
changing  circumstances  and  habits  of  the  language-mak- 
ing community  to  give  the  history  of  development  a 


212  INDO-EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

climactic  form.  The  constructive  methods,  once  in- 
augurated, are  made  effective  up  to  the  provision  of  a 
sufficient  apparatus  for  the  expression  of  relations;  and 
for  a  time,  until  this  point  is  reached,  their  efficiency  is 
greater  than  that  of  the  destructive  processes,  which 
also  have  been  all  the  time  at  work — then  the  relation 
is  gradually  reversed,  and  there  is  more  wearing-out 
than  replacement  by  synthetic  means,  though  this  latter 
also  never  entirely  ceases;  collocations  remain  such, 
instead  of  going  on  to  combination  and  integration ; 
there  is  still  abundant  new  provision,  but  it  is  of 
another  sort.  The  habit  of  construction  has  changed; 
though  to  a  very  different  degree  in  the  divided  parts 
of  the  great  community.  If  there  is  a  law  which 
governs  this  climactic  phase  of  development,  it  has  not 
yet  been  worked  out  and  exhibited;  nor  is  it  likely 
ever  to  be  so,  although  we  can  trace  some  of  the  deter- 
mining influences  which  have  contributed  to  bring  about 
the  effect. 

It  is  time  now  for  us  to  leave  the  family  which  has 
so  long  occupied  us,  and  to  review,  in  a  much  briefer 
manner,  the  structure  of  the  other  grand  divisions  of 
human  language.  But,  founding  upon  the  example  of 
historic  growth  which  we  have  just  been  studying,  it  is 
desirable  first  to  turn  our  attention  to  some  general 
features  of  the  doctrine  of  linguistic  structure. 


CHAPTEE    XL 

LINGUISTIC    STRUCTURE :    MATERIAL   AND    FORM    IN    LAN- 
GUAGE. 

The  distinction  of  material  and  form;  examples:  number,  gen- 
der, case,  etc.,  in  nouns ;  comparison  and  concord  of  adjec- 
tives ;  time,  mood,  and  other  distinctions  in  verbs.  Form  by 
position.  Inferences.  National  and  individual  prejudices ; 
comparative  value  of  different  languages.  A  language  repre- 
sents the  capacity  of  its  makers.  Rude  beginnings  of  all 
speech. 

To  understand,  in  a  general  way,  the  structure  of 
Indo-European  speech,  in  its  character  and  its  uses,  is 
to  us  no  difficult  task;  the  subject  is  already  more  or 
less  familiar.  Though  the  parts  of  this  structure 
which  our  own  language  still  possesses  are  but  frag- 
mentary, they  are  at  least  akin  with  the  rest,  and  lead 
the  way  to  the  knowledge  of  the  whole.  It  is  compara- 
tively a  question  only  of  less  and  more;  and  many  of. 
us  know  the  more,  as  exhibited  in  those  tongues  of  the 
family  which  have  retained  a  larger  share  of  the  origi- 
nal structure,  or  have  supplied  its  loss  more  fully.  We 
cannot,  however,  go  on  profitably  to  examine  the  char- 
acter of  other  languages  without  discussing  a  little, 
by  way  of  introduction,  the  principles  of  grammatical 
structure.  It  will  be  possible  to  do  this,  sufficiently  for 
our  purpose,  in  a  wholly  simple  and  unpretentious  man- 
ner, drawing  illustration  from  phenomena  with  which 

213 


214  STRUCTURE   IN  LANGUAGE. 

almost  every  one  is  familiar,  and  especially  out  of  our 
own  English. 

The  distinction  of  the  more  material  and  the  more 
formal,  relational  parts  of  expression  has  been  noticed 
and  illustrated  by  us  often  already.  The  s  of  brooks, 
for  example,  is  formal  in  relation  to  brook  as  material; 
the  added  letter  indicates  something  subordinate,  a 
modification  of  the  conception  of  brook,  the  existence  of 
it  in  more  than  one  individual :  it  turns  a  singular  into 
a  plural.  Men  has  the  like  value  as  regards  man,  the 
means  of  making  the  same  formal  distinction  having 
come  to  be  of  a  different  kind  from  the  other,  an  in- 
ternal change  instead  of  an  external.  Brooks  and  men 
are  not  mere  material ;  they  are  "  formed "  material, 
signs  for  conceptions  with  one  important  characteristic, 
number,  added.  But  then,  by  simple  contrast  with 
them,  brook  and  man  are  also  "  formed ;  "  each  implies, 
not  by  a  sign,  but  by  the  absence  of  an  otherwise 
necessary  sign  to  the  contrary,  restriction  to  a  single 
article  of  the  kind  named.  According  to  our  habits  of 
speech,  no  one  of  these  words,  no  one  of  our  nouns  in 
general,  can  be  used  without  a  distinct  recognition  by 
the  mind  of  the  number  of  things  signified. 

But  there  are  many  other  definable  qualities  or  cir- 
cumstances belonging  to  brooks  and  men  besides  num- 
ber. They  are,  for  example,  of  very  different  sizes. 
And  we  have  a  similar  formal  means,  though  only  a 
very  limited  one,  of  signifying  this :  a  small  brook  is  to 
us  a  brooklet;  a  small  man,  a  mannikin.  It  is  perfect- 
ly conceivable  that  a  language  should  take  constant 
cognizance  of  this  element  of  size,  distinguishing  always 
the  large,  the  medium,  and  the  small  individuals  of  a 
kind,  by  diminutives  and  magnificatives.  The  Italian 
almost  does  as  much  as  that,  by  a  peculiarity  which  has 


GENDER.  215 

grown  up  in  it  since  it  became  a  separate  language. 
But  while  we  call  a  small  brook  a  brooklet,  we  call  a 
large  one  a  creek,  or  a  river,  or  something  of  that  sort; 
or  we  apply  small  and  large  to  it,  in  all  their  varying 
degrees:  and  so  with  giant  and  dwarf,  and  all  the 
limiting  adjectives,  as  applied  to  man.  All  this  classi- 
fication which  is  made  by  independent  words  is  as  truly 
expression  of  form  as  is  that  which  is  made  by  affixes. 
Another  equally  real  quality,  the  differences  of  which 
are  apparent  in  every  case  that  comes  before  the  mind, 
is,  in  many  animals,  age;  and  we  can  say  man,  lad, 
boy,  child,  infant,  etc.,  as  horse  and  colt,  cow  and  calf, 
and  their  like;  and  the  Latin  senex  and  German  greis 
show  the  extension  of  the  same  system  in  the  other 
direction,  where  we  have  to  use  the  method  of  descrip- 
tion by  independent  words. 

Once  more,  man  in  its  distinctive  sense  indicates  a 
male  animal,  and  we  have  a  different  word,  woman,  for 
a  female  of  the  same  kind;  and  so  all  through  the  list 
of  animals  in  which  sex  is  a  conspicuous  or  an  impor- 
tant distinction:  as  brother  and  sister,  bull  and  cow, 
ram  and  ewe:  nor  is  there  a  language  in  the  world 
which  does  not  do  the  same.  Only,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  our  own  family  of  languages  (along  with  two  or 
three  others)  has  erected  this  distinction  of  sex  into  a 
universal  one,  like  number,  making  it  a  test  to  be  ap- 
plied in  the  use  of  every  word;  breaking  away  from 
the  actual  limits  of  sex,  and  sexualizing,  as  it  were,  all 
objects  of  thought,  on  grounds  which  no  mortal  has 
yet  been  wise  enough  to  discover  and  point  out  in  de- 
tail. And,  though  we  in  English  have  abandoned  the 
artificial  part  of  the  system,  we  retain  its  fundamental 
distinction  by  our  use  of  he,  she,  and  it;  the  test  of  sex 
is  to  us  a  real  and  ever-present  one.    The  modern  Per- 


216  STRUCTURE  IN  LANGUAGE. 

sian  has  lost  from  his  language  even  that  degree  of  gen- 
eric distinction ;  and  to  him,  as  to  the  Turk  or  the  Finn, 
•whose  ancestors  never  acknowledged  any  grammatical 
gender,  it  seems  no  less  strange  to  use  one  pronoun  for 
a  male  being  and  another  for  a  female  than  it  would 
seem  to  us  to  use  one  for  a  small,  or  a  young,  or  a  near, 
or  a  white  object,  and  another  for  a  large,  or  an  old,  or 
a  remote,  or  a  black  object.  And  he  has  really  reason 
on  his  side;  it  is  our  usage  that  is  the  exceptional  one, 
and  needs  justification.  There  is  in  the  nature  of 
things  no  necessity  for  our  choosing  among  the  various 
accidents  of  a  conception  any  particular  ones,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  rest,  as  subjects  of  grammatical  dis- 
tinction— although,  of  course,  there  may  be  reason 
enough  why  one  is  practically  better  worth  distinguish- 
ing than  another.  There  is  a  second,  somewhat  anal- 
ogous yet  not  identical,  distinction  made  by  us,  also 
solely  by  the  use  of  pronouns — namely  of  who  and 
which  or  what — between  persons  and  non-persons;  and 
the  American  Indians  have  one  between  things  animate 
and  things  inanimate,  with  (as  in  the  case  of  our  gen- 
der) abundant  figurative  and  personifying  transfer: 
either  of  these  is  perhaps  as  valuable  in  itself,  and  as 
capable  of  higher  uses,  as  is  the  Indo-European  distinc- 
tion of  the  three  genders. 

We  will  notice  only  one  more  item  in  connection 
with  the  noun,  its  cases.  Our  language  has  preserved 
to  most  of  its  nouns  their  old  genitive  case,  though  not 
without  restriction  of  the  limits  of  its  former  uses. 
And  in  the  pronouns  we  distinguish  the  object  from 
the  subject  or  nominative  case :  he  him,  they  them,  etc. 
By  this  difference,  the  distinction  of  subject  and  object 
relation  is  kept  so  clearly  before  us  that  we  transfer  it 
in  apprehension  to  the  whole  class  of  nouns,  and  reckon 


CASES.  217 

them  also  as  possessing  objective  cases,  though  there  is 
really  none  such  in  the  language.  We  do  not  recognize 
a  dative,  though  we  have  some  really  dative  construc- 
tions— as  in  "  I  give  him  the  book  " — because  there  is 
not  in  use  even  one  dative  of  different  form  from  the 
accusative.  Just  so,  the  Latin  and  Greek  reckon  ac- 
cusatives neuter,  though  these  are  not  in  a  single  in- 
stance different  from  the  nominatives,  because  the  two 
cases  are  usually  unlike  in  other  words;  so  the  Latin 
reckons  an  ablative  plural  different  from  the  dative, 
because  there  is  in  a  part  of  its  words  an  ablative  sin- 
gular different  from  the  dative.  This  transfer  of  a 
formal  distinction  only  partially  made  to  the  words  in 
which  it  is  not  made  at  all  is  an  important  feature  in 
the  history  of  forms.  Our  two  or  three  cases  seem  to 
compare  but  ill  with  the  Sanskrit  seven;  yet  these 
compare  as  ill,  in  one  sense,  with  the  Scythian  fifteen 
or  twenty:  and,  on  the  one  hand,  we  are  able,  by  the 
help  of  another  instrumentality,  to  express  all  that  is 
expressed  by  either  Sanskrit  or  Scythian;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  imply  a  great  deal  more  than  we  or 
they  distinctly  express;  if  we  were  to  use  different 
signs  for  all  the  shades  of  case-relation  which  we  can 
recognize  by  analysis  in  our  speech,  we  should  have  to 
multiply  our  list  of  prepositions  many  times. 

For  a  part  of  our  adjectives  of  quality,  we  have 
forms  (strictly,  derivative  rather  than  inflectional)  de- 
noting two  "degrees"  of  increment:  high,  higher, 
highest;  they  seem  to  have  been  at  the  beginning 
rather  intensive  than  strictly  comparative.  But,  as 
means  of  comparison,  they  cover  only  a  small  part 
of  the  conceivable  ground,  and  cover  it  only  rudely. 
The  possible  degrees  of  a  quality  are  indefinitely  nu- 
merous, and  there  are  descending  as  well  as  ascending 
15 


218  STRUCTURE  IN  LANGUAGE. 

grades,  which  have  in  theory  an  equal  right  to  notice: 
many  of  them  we  clearly  mark  by  our  analytic  substi- 
tutes for  the  old  derivatives;  and  we  frame  such  kin- 
dred means  of  expression  as  are  exemplified  by  reddish 
and  bluish,  German  rbthlich  and  bliiulich  C"  redlike,' 
etc.:  resembling  the  quality,  but  not  quite  it),  French 
rougedtre  and  bleudtre.  Most  of  the  later  tongues  of 
our  family  still  retain  that  adaptedness  of  the  qualify- 
ing adjective,  in  gender  and  number  and  case,  to  the 
noun  qualified,  which,  inherited  from  the  time  when 
adjective  and  substantive  were  not  separated,  was  char- 
acteristic of  their  ancestors;  to  this  we  preserve  noth- 
ing whatever  that  is  correspondent;  that  an  adjective 
should  change  its  form  on  account  of  the  character  of 
the  noun  it  belongs  to  is  as  strange  to  us  as  to  many 
languages  it  is  that  the  verb  should  change  its  form  on 
account  of  the  character  of  the  subject  of  which  it 
predicates  something. 

In  fact,  we  have  almost  reduced  to  a  nullity  also  the 
concord  of  the  verb  and  its  subject.  How  there  came 
to  be  such,  we  have  seen  in  the  foregoing  chapter:  the 
endings  were  the  actual  subject-pronouns  themselves ; 
and  the  distinction  of  person  and  number  in  the  verb 
was  the  necessary  concomitant  and  result  of  that  in  the 
pronouns  and  nouns.  Nor  is  it  yet  quite  a  nullity: 
while  we  say  I  love,  but  thou  lorcst  and  he  loves,  and 
while  they  love  stands  over  against  he  loves,  so  long  shall 
we  continue,  by  an  apprehended  extension  of  these 
clearly-felt  distinctions,  to  reckon  three  persons  and  two 
numbers  in  all  our  verbal  inflection.  But  our  triple 
distinction  of  persons  is  far  from  exhausting  the  possi- 
bilities of  personal  relation  ;  many  tongues  have  a  dou- 
ble first  person  plural,  one  inclusive  and  one  exclusive 
of  the  person  or  persons  addressed:  one  vjc  which  moans 


VEEBAL  FORMS.  219 

'  I  and  my  party '  as  opposed  to  you ;  and  one  that 
means  '  my  party  and  yours,'  as  opposed  to  all  third 
persons.  Others,  again,  distinguish  genders  in  verbal 
inflection :  '  he  loves  '  has  one  ending,  '  she  loves  '  has 
another.  We  have  seen  that  some  older  languages  of 
our  family  have  a  dual  number;  and  it  would  be  quite 
as  proper  in  theory,  only  not  so  manageable  in  prac- 
tice, to  have  a  whole  decimal  system  of  numbers,  just 
as  of  numerals. 

But  the  attendant  circumstances  which  present  them- 
selves for  inclusion  in  verbal  expression,  and  in  one  or 
another  language  find  expression,  are  simply  number- 
less; and  the  richest  verbal  scheme  that  was  ever  put 
together  takes  account  of  only  a  part  of  them,  even 
when  supplemented  by  the  resources  of  analytic  phrase- 
ology. To  us,  the  element  of  time  is  the  conspicuous 
and  pressing  one;  the  denoting  of  an  action  appears 
almost  to  require  an  implication  of  tense-relation.  Yet 
many  languages  do  not  regard  this  element  as  calling 
for  inclusion  in  the  fundamental  structure  of  the  verb 
rather  than  others;  and  they  leave  it  to  be  inferred 
from  the  connection,  or  intimated  by  external  means, 
particles,  auxiliaries,  as  we  on  our  part  treat  other  ele- 
ments which  they  weave  into  the  verbal  structure.  To 
any  given  act  of  speaking,  for  example,  there  cleaves 
some  qualification  of  time;  but  so  also  of  place,  of 
manner,  of  purpose.  Equally  modifications  of  the  in- 
definite act  of  speaking  are  speaking  repeatedly  or 
habitually,  rapidly,  with  violence,  under  compulsion, 
for  another,  or  causing,  ceasing,  appearing  to  speak, 
declaring  another  to  speak,  speaking  to  one's  self — and 
so  on,  indefinitely :  and  these,  or  many  of  them,  are 
actually  incorporated  in  derivative  verbal  forms  by 
races  who  treat  the  tense-element  less  elaborately  than 


220  STRUCTURE  IN   LANGUAGE. 

we.  And  our  tense-making  is  on  the  smallest  scale,  as 
compared  with  the  infinite  possibilities  of  tense-dis- 
tinction. We  have  not  even,  as  some  languages  have, 
a  nearer  and  remoter  past,  a  nearer  and  remoter  future. 
That  a  thing  was  done  long  ago  is  as  true  a  temporal 
relation  as  that  it  happened  in  past  time  at  all;  but  we 
intimate  only  the  latter  by  an  inflection,  and  the  former 
by  relational  words;  and  therefore,  to  our  way  of  think- 
ing, he  who  wants  the  inflection  has  too  little,  and  he 
who  converts  the  other  into  an  inflection  has  too  much. 
Our  triple  forms  for  each  tense — /  love.  I  do  Jove,  I  am 
loving — by  their  incessant  use,  and  the  necessity  con- 
stantly imposed  on  us  of  choosing  among  them,  keep 
before  our  minds  certain  distinctions  which  are  com- 
paratively unnoticed  in  French  or  German ;  yet  they 
are  in  the  French  and  German  minds  also,  and  if  any 
of  them  rises  to  prominent  importance,  those  languages 
have  sufficient  means  of  intimating  them.  It  is  good 
English  or  German  to  say  "  I  picked  up  the  book  that 
lay  there;"  but  to  the  Frenchman  it  would  be  a  gross 
blunder  to  use  the  same  tense  for  the  instantaneous  act 
of  picking  up  and  the  continuous  condition  of  lying; 
the  difference  is  clearly  involved  in  our  thought  as  well 
as  his;  only  our  language  does  not  compel  our  atten- 
tion to  it.  The  case  is  quite  the  same  with  our  moods, 
those  means  of  defining  the  contemplated  relation  be- 
tween subject  and  predicate,  or  modifications  of  the 
copula.  There  are  infinite  shades  of  doubt  and  con- 
tingency, of  hope  and  fear,  of  supplication  and  exaction, 
in  our  mental  acts  and  cognitions,  which  all  the  syn- 
thetic resources  of  Greek  moods,  with  added  particles 
and  adverbs,  which  all  the  analytic  phraseology  of 
English,  are  but  rude  and  coarse  means  of  signifying. 
And  an  Algonkin  verb  makes  a  host  of  distinctions 


PRINCIPLES.  221 

which  are  so  strange  to  us  that  we  can  hardly  learn  to 
appreciate  them  when  defined. 

There  is  one  other  mode  of  formal  distinction  which 
demands  a  moment's  notice  from  us:  namely,  position. 
In  "  you  love  your  enemies,  but  your  enemies  hate 
you,"  the  distinction  of  subject  and  object  is  dependent 
solely  on  position,  and  is  given  by  that  means  with  all 
necessary  clearness.  In  a  language  of  which  the  inflec- 
tions are  so  much  worn  out  as  are  ours,  this  method 
counts  for  much;  and  there  are  tongues  in  which  it  is 
of  even  superior  importance.  Those,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  have  a  greater  abundance  of  inflections  possess  a 
freedom  of  arrangement  which  to  us  is  surprising,  and 
almost  puzzling. 

The  principal  conclusions  intended  to  be  suggested 
by  this  brief  exposition,  and  to  be  made  of  use  in  com- 
paring the  structure  of  various  languages,  are,  it  is  be- 
lieved, sufficiently  clear.  In  the  first  place,  the  realm 
of  formal  relation  is  infinite,  unexhausted  by  the  formal 
resources  of  even  the  richest  language,  or  of  all  lan- 
guages :  however  much  may  be  expressed,  there  is 
vastly  more  of  the  same  kind  left  unexpressed,  to  be 
inferred  by  the  intelligent,  mind  from  the  perceived 
conditions  of  the  particular  case,  or  passed  over  as  unes- 
sential to  the  ordinary  purposes  of  communication — 
which  is,  at  the  best,  only  a  rude  and  fragmentary 
means  of  putting  one  mind,  or  heart,  into  communion 
with  another.  There  are  no  relations  to  which  a  lan- 
guage must  necessarily  give  expression;  there  are  only 
certain  ones  which  are  more  naturally  suggested,  of 
which  the  expression  is  more  practically  valuable,  than 
others :  and  what  these  are,  we  can  learn  only  from  the 
general  study  of  languages;  our  own  educated  prefer- 
ences are  no  trustworthy  guide  to  them.     In  the  second 


222  STRUCTURE  IN  LANGUAGE. 

place,  there  is  no  absolute  dividing-line  between  what 
is  material  and  what  is  formal  in  a  language;  material 
and  form  are  relative  words  only,  names  for  degrees, 
for  poles  of  a  continuous  series,  of  which  the  members 
shade  into  one  another.  And,  as  we  saw  in  the  fifth 
chapter,  the  grandest  internal  movement  in  a  growing 
and  improving  language  is  that  from  more  material  to 
more  formal  uses,  whereby  both  words  and  phrases  take 
on  a  less  gross  and  physical  meaning,  even  to  the  ex- 
tent of  being  attenuated  into  form-words,  or,  in  com- 
bination with  other  elements,  into  formative  elements 
— both  alike  indicators  of  relation.  Hence,  in  the 
third  place,  the  means  of  formal  expression  are  of  the 
utmost  variety;  they  are  not  to  be  sought  in  one  de- 
partment of  a  language  only,  but  in  all;  they  are  scat- 
tered through  the  whole  vocabulary,  as  well  as  concen- 
trated in  the  grammatical  apparatus.  Deficiency  in  orfc 
department  may  be  compensated,  or  more  than  com- 
pensated, by  provision  of  resources  in  another.  There 
is  no  human  tongue  which  is  destitute  of  the  expression 
of  form;  and  to  call  certain  languages,  and  them  alone, 
"  form-languages,''  is  indefensible,  except  as  the  term 
may  be  meant  to  describe  them  as  possessing  in  a  higher 
or  exceptional  degree  a  quality  which  they  really  share 
with  all  the  rest. 

In  judging  other  languages,  then,  we  have  to  try  to 
rid  ourselves  of  the  prejudices  generated  by  our  own 
acquired  habits  of  expression,  and  to  be  prepared  to 
find  other  peoples  making  a  very  different  selection 
from  our  own  of  those  qualifications  and  relations  of 
the  more  material  substance  of  expression  which  they 
shall  distinctly  represent  in  speech,  and  also  sharing 
these  out  very  differently  among  the  different  modes 
of  formal  expression.     It  is  a  common  error  of  uncul- 


COMPARATIVE  MERIT.  223 

tivated,  and  of  narrowly  though  highly  cultivated  peo- 
ples, to  regard  themselves  alone  as  speakers,  and  all 
others  as  babblers,  "  barbarians,"  unintelligent  because 
to  them  unintelligible  talkers.  We  are  in  no  danger 
of  doing  that;  but  we  are  in  danger  still  of  over-esti- 
mating the  peculiar  traits  of  our  speech,  and  depreciat- 
ing those  of  others'  speech.  Nothing  is  harder  than  to 
be  perfectly  impartial  here;  to  judge  the  comparative 
merit  of  one's  own  and  of  another  language  requires  a 
grasp  of  all  the  particulars  involved,  a  power  of  analy- 
sis and  comparison,  and  a  freedom  from  both  national 
and  individual  prejudice,  of  which  only  exceptionally 
endowed  and  exceptionally  trained  minds  will  be  capa- 
ble. Even  great  scholars  are  liable  here  to  great  errors. 
There  are  eminent  English-speaking  philologists  who 
regard  English  analysis  as  the  only  reasonable  or  "  logi- 
cal '•'  mode  of  expression,  and  look  down  on  Greek 
synthesis  as  something  characteristic  of  a  rude  and  un- 
developed intellectual  condition;  there  are  many  more, 
doubtless,  of  various  nationality,  who  undervalue  the 
resources  of  English,  and  are  loath  to  assign  a  high 
rank  to  a  tongue  which  has  lost  or  thrown  away  so 
much  of  its  inherited  structure. 

On  the  whole,  perhaps  the  best  and  most  trust- 
worthy test  of  the  value  of  a  language  is,  what  its 
speakers  have  made  it  do.  Language  is  but  the  instru- 
ment for  the  expression  of  thought.  If  a  people  has 
looked  at  the  world  without  and  within  us  with  a  pene- 
trating and  discerning  eye,  has  observed  successfully  the 
resemblances  and  differences  of  things,  has  distinguished 
well  and  combined  well  and  reasoned  well,  its  language, 
of  however  apparently  imperfect  structure,  in  the  tech- 
nical sense  of  that  term,  enjoys  all  the  advantage  which 
comes  from  such  use;  it  is  the  fitting  instrument  of  an 


224:  STRUCTURE  IN  LANGUAGE. 

enlightened  mind.  There  is  nothing  in  the  grammatical 
form  of  either  Greek  or  English  that  may  not  he  de- 
graded to  serve  only  base  uses. 

In  another  sense  also  a  language  is  what  its  speakers 
make  it :  its  structure,  of  whatever  character,  represents 
their  collective  capacity  in  that  particular  direction  of 
effort.  It  is,  not  less  than  every  other  part  of  their  civ- 
ilization, the  work  of  the  race;  every  generation,  every 
individual,  has  borne  a  part  in  shaping  it.  Whether, 
however,  the  language-making  capacity  can  be  corre- 
lated with  any  other,  so  that  we  may  say,  a  highly- 
organized  speech  could  not  be  expected  from  a  histor- 
ical community  whose  work  in  this  or  that  other  respect 
shows  a  deficiency  of  excellence,  is  extremely  doubtful; 
thus  far,  at  any  rate,  nothing  of  value  has  been  done  in 
that  direction.  The  Chinese  is,  as  we  shall  see  in  the 
next  chapter,  a  most  striking  example  of  how  a  commu- 
nity of  a  very  high  grade  of  general  ability  may  exhibit 
an  extreme  inaptitude  for  fertile  linguistic  development. 
We  may  suitably  compare  this  with  the  grades  of  apti- 
tude shown  by  various  races  for  plastic  or  pictorial  or 
musical  art,  which  by  no  means  measure  their  capacity 
for  other  intellectual  or  spiritual  products.  No  uncult- 
ured people  ever  spends  consciously  any  time  or  effort 
upon  its  speech;  this  cannot  be  thought  over  and  worked 
up  into  better  shape;  it  must  come  by  the  way,  as  inci- 
dent to  the  work  of  thought,  as  result  of  unreflective 
effort  at  communication.  That  race  which  possesses 
most  of  the  right  kind  of  regulative  force  will  turn  out 
a  product  that  is  admirable;  and  the  contrary. 

Only,  also,  the  possibility  of  a  radical  change  of  his- 
tory, a  new  turn  of  development,  is  different  at  different 
periods  of  growth.  After  a  certain  stage  of  advance  in 
definite  and  established  expression  is  reached,  the  con- 


LANGUAGE  MADE  BY  ITS  SPEAKERS.         225 

servative  forces,  depending  on  acquired  habits  of  speech, 
are  too  strong  to  be  overcome,  and  the  language  goes  on 
forever  on  the  course  which  the  directing  hands  of  the 
earlier  generations  have  determined.  This  is  a  point 
upon  which  we  have  no  right  yet  to  speak  with  defmite- 
ness;  we  may  hope  some  day  to  understand  it  better; 
to  be  able,  for  example,  to  lay  down  exactly  what  condi- 
tions the  stagnation  of  Chinese  speech.  There  are  other 
departments  of  civilization  in  which  a  race  does  not 
always  show  itself  able  to  develop  unaided  its  own  best 
capacities.  The  Celtic  and  Germanic  tribes,  which  have 
proved  themselves  equal  to  taking  leading  places  in  the 
world's  history,  might  have  remained  comparative  bar- 
barians to  the  present  time,  if  they  had  not  received 
Greek  civilization,  as  shaped  over  and  reorganized  by 
Home.  But  though  a  nation  may  borrow  culture  from 
its  neighbors,  it  does  not  in  the  same  way  borrow  lin- 
guistic development;  no  race  ever  adopted  a  new  mode 
of  structural  growth  for  its  native  speech  by  imitation 
of  another;  though  many  a  community  has,  under  suffi- 
cient external  inducement,  exchanged  its  native  speech 
for  another;  and  borrowing,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
especially  accompanies  transfer  of  culture,  and  is  capable 
of  going  on  to  such  an  extent  as  vastly  to  enrich  the 
borrowing  speech,  and  fit  it  for  higher  uses. 

While  a  people's  capacities  and  acquirements  make 
its  language,  we  must  not  fail  to  notice  also  the  con- 
trary truth,  that  its  language  helps  to  determine  its  in- 
tellectual character  and  progress.  The  powerful  reflex 
influence  of  language  on  mental  action  is  a  universally 
admitted  fact  in  linguistics;  to  allow  it  is  only  to  allow 
that  rooted  habits,  learned  by  each  generation  from  its 
predecessor,  have  a  controlling  influence  on  action — 
which  is  axiomatic.    But  the  subject  belongs  to  a  much 


226  STRUCTURE  IN  LANGUAGE. 

more  advanced  and  elaborate  discussion  of  language  than 
this  work  makes  any  pretense  of  being;  and  it  has  never 
yet  been  worked  out  fruitfully. 

On  the  analogy  of  Indo-European  speech  alone  we 
have  a  right  to  assume,  at  least  provisionally,  that  what- 
ever of  inflective  structure  may  be  possessed  also  by 
other  languages,  whatever  of  formal  and  formative 
apparatus  they  may  contain,  of  any  kind,  has  been 
wrought  out  by  somewhat  similar  methods,  from  a 
similar  initial  stage  of  rude  and  gross  material.  If 
there  shall  be  found  languages  in  which  this  is  demon- 
strably not  the  case,  we  can  modify  or  abandon  the 
assumption  hereafter;  but  it  will  require  very  definite 
and  cogent  evidence  to  make  such  demonstration.  For 
language  is  an  instrumentality;  and  the  law  of  sim- 
plicity of  beginnings  applies  to  it  not  less  naturally  and 
necessarily  than  to  other  instrumentalities.  Some  seem 
to  imagine  that  to  regard  men  as  having  begun  to  talk 
with  formless  roots,  which  we  now  arrive  at  "  by  ab- 
straction "  from  the  material  of  living  languages,  is  like 
regarding  them  as  having  begun  the  use  of  physical 
instruments  with  the  bare  abstract  motive  powers — the 
inclined  plane,  the  wheel,  the  pulley.  But  such  a  par- 
allel is  as  absolutely  erroneous  as  anything  can  be:  the 
analogues  of  the  motive  powers,  rather,  would  be  the 
attributive  and  predicative  relations,  the  assertive,  inter- 
rogative, and  imperative  modes,  and  their  like.  The 
analogue  of  the  root  is  the  stick  or  the  stone  which 
was  indubitably  man's  first  instrument :  a  crude  tool  or 
weapon,  used  for  a  variety  of  purposes  to  which  we 
now  adapt  a  corresponding  variety  of  much  more  intri- 
cate and  shapely  tools.  And  to  hold  that  formed  words, 
divisible  into  radical  and  formative  elements,  were  first 
in  the  uses  of  speech,  is  just  as  defensible  as  to  hold 


BEGINNINGS  OP  STRUCTURE.  227 

that  men  began  to  labor  with  hammers  and  saws  and 
planes  and  nails,  and  to  fight  with  iron-headed  lances 
and  bows  and  catapults.  In  each  single  root  was  pres- 
ent at  the  outset — as  may  be  present  in  a  single  inter- 
jectional  monosyllable  now — a  whole  assertion,  or  in- 
quiry, or  command,  to  which  the  tone  and  accompanying 
gesture,  or  the  mere  circumstances  of  its  utterance,  fur- 
nished the  sufficient  interpretation :  just  as  in  the  stick 
or  stone  was  present — and  may,  on  an  emergency,  be 
made  present  still — a  variety  of  instruments  or  weapons. 
Again,  to  maintain,  for  the  purpose  of  explaining 
the  variety  of  later  languages,  that  the  expressions  of 
the  earliest  men  must  have  been  potentially  different  in 
the  different  races,  as  the  seeds  or  germs  which  develop 
into  different  animals  or  plants  are  different ;  that  a  for- 
mative principle  must  have  been  present  in  the  material 
of  one  language  and  not  of  another;  that  in  the  ele- 
ments which  came  afterward  to  be  put  to  formative 
uses  there  was  from  the  beginning  a  form-making  func- 
tion inherent,  and  so  on — all  this  is  sheer  mythology. 
One  might  as  well  claim  that  in  the  stick  or  stone,  as 
used  by  some  races,  there  was  lying  perdu  a  well-mem- 
bered  instrument  or  machine,  which  somehow  developed 
out  of  it  in  the  hands  of  its  users,  and  that  in  the  wood 
and  metal  of  certain  regions  were  inherent  machine- 
making  functions,  not  possessed  elsewhere.  Language 
comes  to  be  just  what  its  users  make  it;  its  offices  cor- 
respond to  their  capacities;  if  there  is  a  higher  degree 
of  formative  structure  in  one  language  than  in  another, 
the  reason  lies  in  the  difference  of  quality  of  the  two 
races,  their  different  capacity  of  education  and  growth; 
not  at  all  in  the  character  of  the  beginnings  from  which 
both  alike  started,  nor  of  the  materials  which  both  alike 
have  ever  since  had  at  command. 


CHAPTEE    XII. 

OTHER   FAMILIES   OF   LANGUAGE:    THEIR   LOCALITY,   AGE, 
AND   STRUCTURE. 

Classification  by  families.  Scythian  or  Ural-Altaic  or  Turanian 
family ;  doubtful  members  of  it.  Monosyllabic  family  :  Chi- 
nese, Farther  Indian,  etc.  Japanese.  Malay-Polynesian ; 
other  insular  families:  Papuan,  Australian.  Dravidian. 
Caucasian  languages.  Semitic  family;  question  of  its  rela- 
tionships. Hamitic  :  Egyptian,  etc.  South  African  or  Ban- 
tu. Middle  African  languages.  Basque.  American  Indian 
languages. 

We  have  called  a  certain  body  of  languages  a  fami- 
ly, the  Indo-European.  The  name  "  family,"  we  saw, 
was  applied  to  it  by  strict  analogy  with  the  use  of  the 
same  term  elsewhere:  the  languages  in  question  had 
been  found,  on  competent  examination,  to  show  good 
evidence  of  descent  from  a  common  ancestor.  We  had, 
however,  to  confess  that  the  limits,  even  of  this  best- 
known  of  families,  cannot  be  traced  with  absolute  pre- 
cision; one  or  another  tongue,  not  now  thought  of,  or 
else  doubtfully  regarded,  as  Indo-European,  may  one 
day  make  good  its  title  to  a  place  with  the  rest.  We 
have  also  seen  that,  by  the  operation  of  completely  com- 
prehensible causes,  no  language  on  earth  exists  in  a  state 
of  absolute  accordance  through  the  whole  community 
that  speaks  it ;  it  is  a  group,  even  if  a  very  limited  one, 
of  related  dialects.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  the  first 
228 


CLASSIFICATION  BY  FAMILIES.  229 

task  of  the  comparative  study  of  languages  to  divide  all 
human  speech  into  families,  by  recognizable  signs  of 
relationship :  only  thus  can  there  be  made  any  such 
examination  of  their  character  and  history  as  shall  lead 
the  way  to  the  other  results  which  the  science  seeks  to 
attain.  And  such  a  classification  has  in  fact  been  made. 
It  is,  of  course,  in  parts  only  a  tentative  and  provisional 
arrangement,  held  liable  to  rectification,  both  by  addi- 
tion and  by  the  giving  up  of  what  is  now  held  even 
with  a  fair  degree  of  confidence :  for  it  not  seldom  hap- 
pens that  lines  which  in  a  half-light  appear  definite  and 
fixed  dissolve  away  when  full  illumination  is  turned 
upon  them.  The  cautious  philologist  combines  only  so 
far  as  trustworthy  evidences  take  him,  leaving  the  rest 
to  be  settled  when  more  knowledge  is  won. 

As "  a  matter  of  fact,  moreover,  linguistic  scholars 
have  hitherto  been  able  to  put  together  into  families 
only  those  languages  which  have  a  common  structure. 
That  is  to  say,  only  tongues  which  have  shared  at  least 
a  part  of  their  growth  out  of  the  original  radical  stage 
(provided  they  have  left  it)  have  yet  been  found  to 
exhibit  reliable  evidence  of  relationship.  No  one,  it  is 
evident,  has  a  right  to  declare  a  priori  that  there  cannot 
remain  even  from  the  initial  stage  sufficient  signs  of 
common  descent,  in  branches  whose  whole  structural 
development  has  been  separate :  in  fact,  philologists  are 
feeling  about  among  the  roots  of  certain  families  for 
such  signs,  and  may  one  day  succeed  in  bringing  them 
to  light;  but  thus  far  no  definite  results  have  been 
reached.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  note  in  the  next 
chapter  the  difficulties  which  environ  the  inquiry,  and 
to  point  out  the  reasons  why,  on  a  large  scale,  it  is 
likely  to  fail  of  success. 

The  first  family,  then,  which  we  take  up  is  that  of 


230  FAMILIES  OP  LANGUAGE. 

which  the  leading  branches  occupy  more  or  less  of 
European  soil,  alongside  those  of  our  own  kindred. 
Of  these  branches  there  are  three.  The  first,  the 
Finno-Hungarian,  or  Ugrian,  is  chiefly  European :  it 
includes  the  Finnish,  with  the  nearly  related  Esthonian 
and  Livonian,  and  the  remoter  Lappish  in  the  Scandi- 
navian peninsula;  the  Hungarian,  an  isolated  dialect  in 
the  south,  wholly  environed  by  Indo-European  tongues, 
but  of  which  the  intrusion  into  its  present  place,  by  im- 
migration from  near  the  southern  Ural,  has  taken  place 
within  the  historic  period;  the  dialects  from  which  the 
Hungarian  separated  itself,  the  Ostiak  and  Wogul,  in 
and  beyond  the  Ural;  and  the  tongues  of  other  related 
tribes  in  eastern  Eussia,  as  the  Ziryanians,  Wotiaks, 
Mordwins,  etc.  The  Finns  and  Hungarians  are  the 
only  cultivated  peoples  of  the  branch :  there  are  frag- 
ments of  Hungarian  language  from  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century,  but  the  literature  begins  only  four 
centuries  later,  and  scantily,  the  people  formerly  using 
the  Latin  much  more  than  their  own  speech  for  literary 
purposes;  the  earliest  Finnish  records  are  of  the  six- 
teenth century;  the  language  has  a  mythic  poem,  the 
Kalevala,  written  down  in  this  century  from  the  mouths 
of  popular  singers,  of  especial  originality  and  interest. 

The  second  branch,  quite  nearly  related  with  this 
one,  is  the  Samoyed,  belonging  to  a  Hyperborean  race, 
which  stretches  from  the  North  Sea  to  beyond  the 
Yenisei,  and  up  the  course  of  this  river  into  the  central 
mountains  of  the  continent,  the  Altai  range,  probably 
the  starting-point  of  its  migrations.  It  has  no  culture, 
nor  importance  of  any  kind. 

The  third  branch,  the  Turkish  or  Tartar  (more 
properly  Tatar),  only  touches  and  overlaps  the  Euro- 
pean frontier  at  the  south.     The  race  to  which  it  be- 


SCYTHIAN  FAMILY.  231 

longs,  after  having  been  long  the  restless  foe  of  the 
Iranians  on  their  northeastern  frontier,  finally,  after  the 
Mohammedanizmg  of  Persia,  forced  its  way  through, 
worked  on  westward,  captured  Constantinople  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  was  arrested  there  only  by  the 
combined  and  long-continued  efforts  of  the  powers  of 
central  Europe.  It  is  stretched  out  at  present  from 
European  Turkey  (in  which  it  nowhere  forms  the  mass 
of  the  population)  over  a  great  part  of  central  Asia, 
and  even,  in  its  Yakut  branch,  to  the  mouth  of  the  dis- 
tant Lena.  The  Yakuts,  Bashkirs,  and  Kirghiz,  the 
Uigurs,  Usbeks,  and  Turkomans,  and  the  Osmanlis  of 
Asiatic  and  European  Turkey,  are  some  of  the  princi- 
pal divisions  of  the  race.  The  Uigurs,  getting  their 
alphabet  and  culture  from  Nestorian  missionaries,  were 
the  first  to  produce  a  scant  literature,  as  far  back  as 
the  eighth  to  the  tenth  centuries;  the  southeastern  peo- 
ples have  records  ("  Jagataic  ")  of  the  fourteenth  to  the 
sixteenth;  the  abundant  and  varied  but  little  original 
literature  of  the  Osmanlis  dates  from  the  time  of  their 
European  conquests;  it  is  full  of  Persian  and  Arabic 
materials. 

Eespecting  the  family  relationship  of  these  three 
branches  there  is  no  question.  As  to  the  common  name 
by  which  they  shall  be  called,  usage  is  very  diverse. 
"  Turanian  "  is  perhaps  more  frequent  than  any  other, 
but  there  are  grave  objections  to  its  genesis  and  appli- 
cation, and,  till  use  shall  pronounce  more  definitely  in 
its  favor,  it  is  hardly  fit  to  be  employed  in  scientific 
description.  "Ural-Altaic,"  "Scythian,"  "Tartaric" 
are  others,  employed  by  various  authors :  the  first  has 
its  advantages,  but  is  unwieldy,  and  implies  rather  more 
knowledge  as  to  the  movements  of  the  family  than  we 
actually  possess ;  we  may  use  here  "  Scythian,"  provi- 


232  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

sionally,  and  disclaiming  for  it  any  marked  or  partisan 
preference. 

Scythian  language  is  the  type  of  what  is  called  an 
"agglutinative"  structure,  as  distinguished  from  the 
"  inflective  "  Indo-European.  By  this  is  meant  that  the 
elements  of  various  origin  which  make  up  Scythian 
words  and  forms  are  more  loosely  aggregated,  preserve 
more  independence,  than  do  the  Indo-European;  there 
is  far  less  integration  of  the  parts,  with  disguise  and 
obliteration  of  their  separate  entity.  All  our  own  for- 
mations, as  has  been  seen,  begin  with  being  agglutina- 
tions; and  such  words  as  un-tru-th-ful-ly  preserve  an 
agglutinative  character;  if  all  our  words  were  like  it, 
there  would  be  no  marked  difference  between  the  two 
families  as  to  this  fundamental  item.  For  the  Scythian 
formative  elements  are  also  only  in  small  part  trace- 
able to  the  independent  words  out  of  which  they  have 
grown;  they  are,  like  the  Indo-European  affixes,  mere 
signs  of  relation  and  of  modification  of  meaning.  But 
Scythian  formations  do  not  go  on  to  fuse  root  and  end- 
ing, even  to  the  replacing  of  an  external  by  an  internal 
flection.  As  a  rule,  the  root  maintains  itself  unaltered 
in  the  whole  group  of  derivatives  and  inflection,  and 
each  suffix  has  an  unchanged  form  and  office:  whence, 
on  the  one  hand,  a  great  regularity  of  formation,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  great  intricacy.  Thus,  in  Turkish, 
for  example,  lar  (or  ler)  forms  plurals  everywhere;  to 
it  are  added  the  same  case-endings  which  alone  make 
the  singular  cases;  and  pronominal  elements  indicating 
possession  may  be  yet  further  interposed  between  the 
two:  so  ev,  '  house/  ev-den,  'from  a  house,'  ev-um-den. 
'  from  my  house,'  ev-ler-um-den,  i  from  my  houses.' 
The  case-relations  indicated  by  these  endings  or  suffixed 
particles  are  numerous,  in  some  dialects  rising  to  twenty. 


SCYTHIAN  FAMILY.  233 

The  verb  exemplifies  the  same  peculiarity  still  more 
strikingly:  there  are  half  a  dozen  modifying  elements 
capable  of  insertion,  singly  or  in  variously  combined 
groups,  between  root  and  endings,  to  express  passive, 
reflexive,  reciprocal,  causative,  negative,  and  impossible 
action;  so  that  from  the  simple  root  sev,  for  example, 
we  may  make  the  intricate  derivative  sev-ish-dir-il-e-me- 
mele,  '  not  to  be  capable  of  being  made  to  love  one  an- 
other,' which  is  then  conjugated  with  the  various  forms 
of  the  simple  verb;  thus  bringing  the  possible  inflec- 
tive forms  from  one  root  up  to  a  number  which  is  im- 
mense as  compared  with  any  Indo-European  verb. 

But  the  distinction  of  verb  and  noun  in  these  lan- 
guages is  much  less  original,  fundamental,  and  sharply 
drawn  than  with  us.  The  verbally  used  forms  are, 
rather,  but  one  step  removed  from  nouns  used  predi- 
catively,  with  subjective  or  possessive  pronominal  ele- 
ments appended.  The  types  of  verbal  forms  are,  for 
example,  (Turkish)  dogur-um,  'striking  1/  i.e.  'I 
strike,'  and  dogd-um,  '  act  of  striking  mine,'  i.  e.  'I 
have  struck ; '  and  the  third  person  is  without  ending : 
dogdi,  '  he  has  struck,'  dogdi-ler,  '  they  have  struck,' 
literally  '  striking,'  '  strikings.'  To  say  this  is  not  to 
say  that  these  languages  have  no  real  verb;  since  to 
make  a  verb  it  needs  only  that  certain  forms  be  set 
apart  and  strictly  devoted  by  usage  to  the  expression  of 
the  predicative  relation;  but  it  does  imply  a  decided 
inferiority  in  the  grade  of  clearness  of  this  most  fruit- 
ful of  formal  distinctions,  and  may  shade  off  into  a 
total  absence  of  it.  Of  tenses  and  moods  such  as  those 
instanced  above,  and  others  made  with  auxiliaries,  these 
languages  have  a  plenty;  and  their  variety  of  resource 
in  derivatives  is  very  great;  so  that  all  the  formal  ap- 
paratus is  provided  which  is  needed  for  shaping  by  the 
16 


234  FAMILIES  OP  LANGUAGE. 

right  usage  into  a  sufficient  instrument  of  thought;  and 
the  most  cultivated  of  the  dialects  do  indeed  come  so 
near  to  "  inflection "  that  their  falling  short  of  it  is 
hardly  more  than  nominal. 

The  Scythian  adjective  is  as  bare  of  inflection  as  the 
English;  and  there  is  an  utter  absence  of  gender  as 
one  of  the  categories  of  noun-inflection  or  of  pronomi- 
nal distinction,  just  as  in  Persian.  Eelatives  and  con- 
junctions are  also  nearly  unknown,  the  combinations 
of  dependent  clauses  being,  as  is  natural  in  languages 
where  the  verb  is  a  less  definite  part  of  speech,  rather 
by  case-forms  of  verbal  nouns.  These  constructions 
make  upon  us  the  impression  of  great  intricacy,  and  in- 
vert that  order  of  the  members  of  the  sentence  to  which 
we  are  accustomed. 

In  the  phonetic  structure  of  these  languages,  the 
most  striking  trait  is  the  so-called  "  harmonic  sequence 
of  vowels."  There  are,  namely,  two  classes  of  vowels, 
light  and  heavy,  or  palatal  (e,  i,  il,  o)  and  other  {a,  o, 
u) ;  and  it  is  the  general  law  that  the  vowels  of  the 
various  endings  shall  be  of  the  class  of  that  in  the  root, 
or  in  its  last  syllable — thus  marking  the  appurtenance 
and  dependency  of  the  endings  in  their  relation  to  the 
root  in  a  manner  which,  though  undoubtedly  at  first 
euphonic  only  (like  the  Germanic  umlaut),  has  lent  it- 
self usefully  to  the  purposes  of  formal  distinction. 
Every  suffix,  then,  has  two  forms,  a  light  and  a  heavy : 
we  have  al-mak,  but  sev-mek;  ev-ler,  but  agha-lar,  and 
so  on.  In  some  dialects  this  assimilative  process  is  of  a 
wonderful  degree  of  intricacy. 

There  is  field  and  scope  in  these  languages  for  a 
comparative  grammar  of  the  highest  interest  and  im- 
portance ;  but  no  one  has  yet  taken  up  the  work  seriously 
and  comprehensively;  the  science  of  language  has  ad- 


ACCADIAN  LANGUAGE.  235 

vanced  far  enough  to  demand  its  execution,  which,  it  is 
to  be  hoped,  will  not  be  long  deferred.  One  obstacle  in 
its  way,  the  lack  of  really  ancient  records,  from  a 
time  comparable  to  that  of  the  early  Indo-European 
documents,  is  likely  to  be  removed,  if  recent  claims 
shall  prove  well-founded.  There  is,  namely,  in  the 
Mesopotamian  and  Persian  records,  a  third  language, 
the  so-called  Accadian,  of  greatly  disputed  character 
and  connections,  but  which  has  been  for  some  time  past 
persistently  declared  by  one  party  of  its  students  to  be 
Ugrian,  an  ancient  dialect  of  the  Finno-Hungarian 
stock,  and  a  grammar  of  it  has  lately  been  written  (by 
M.  Lenormant)  on  that  understanding.  This  is  a  point 
of  very  high  importance,  but  we  have  no  right  yet  to 
consider  it  fairly  settled;  it  is  doubtful  whether  so  ex- 
act and  comprehensive  knowledge  and  so  sound  method 
have  yet  been  applied  as  to  yield  a  trustworthy  result. 
What  adds  greatly  to  the  interest  of  the  matter  is  that 
this  language  and  its  community  are  demonstrably  the 
original  owners  of  the  cuneiform  mode  of  writing, 
which  has  been  borrowed  and  adapted  by  both  Semitic 
and  Indo-European  peoples:  it  would  follow,  then,  that 
the  original  basis  of  culture  in  that  great  and  important 
centre  of  the  world's  civilization  was  Scythian.  We 
have  no  right  to  deny  the  possibility  of  this;  at  the 
same  time,  it  is  so  inconsistent  with  what  we  know  of 
the  activity  of  the  race  elsewhere  that  we  have  a  right 
to  regard  it  with  provisional  incredulity,  and  to  demand 
a  full  demonstration  before  yielding  it  our  belief. 

Along  with  the  three  branches  we  have  been  con- 
sidering are  generally  ranked,  as  belonging  to  the  same 
family,  two  others,  the  Mongolian  and  the  Tungusic: 
but  the  evidence  for  their  inclusion  with  the  rest  is 
confessedly  less  positive,  and  we  are  justified  in  holding 


236  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

a  doubtful  position  as  regards  them.  Their  languages 
are  of  a  much  lower  grade  of  development,  verging 
even  upon  monosyllabic  poverty,  having  nothing  which 
can  be  called  a  verb,  possessing  even  no  distinction  of 
number  and  person  in  their  predicative  words.  This 
may  well  enough  be  the  result  of  arrested  growth,  but 
whether  it  demonstrably  is  so  is  another  question,  to 
which  we  demand  a  more  competent  and  satisfactory 
reply  than  has  yet  been  given.  An  opposing  consider- 
ation of  no  slight  weight  is  the  different  physical  type 
("Mongolian")  of  these  races,  which  connects  them 
rather  with  the  extreme  eastern  Asiatics  than  with  the 
Europeans.  Another  is  their  possession  of  a  "classifi- 
catory  "  system  of  estimation  and  designation  of  rela- 
tionship (Mr.  L.  H.  Morgan),  as  opposed  to  the  analytic 
or  "  descriptive  "  one  of  the  other  branches.  It  is  not, 
then,  undue  skepticism  that  leads  us  to  limit  the  Scyth- 
ian family  for  the  present  to  its  three  demonstrated 
branches.  Just  in  this  direction  there  has  been  such  an 
excess  of  unscientific  and  wholesale  grouping,  the  clas- 
sification of  ignorance,  that  a  little  even  of  overstrained 
conservatism  ought  to  have  a  wholesome  effect. 

The  Mongol  territory  occupies  a  great  space  on  the 
inhospitable  plateau  of  central  Asia;  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  great  movement  by  which,  in  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries,  the  race  became  the  conquer- 
ors and  devastators  of  almost  the  whole  world,  frag- 
ments of  it  are  scattered  far  westward,  one  even  occu- 
pying a  considerable  tract  astride  the  Volga,  near  its 
mouth.  The  Mongols  reach  eastward  along  a  gi*eat  part 
of  the  northern  frontier  of  China,  and  are  there  succeed- 
ed by  the  Tungusic  tribes,  who  range  still  farther  east 
and  north,  almost  to  the  coasts.  Of  these  tribes,  the  only 
one  of  note  is  the  Manchu,  whose  great  deed  and  title 


CHINESE  LANGUAGE.  237 

to  historic  fame  is  its  conquest  and  administration  of 
China  during  the  past  two  centuries.  Both  Mongols 
and  Manchus  have  alphabets,  their  usual  ones  derived 
through  the  Uigur  Turkish  from  the  Syriac;  their  lit- 
eratures are  quite  modern  only,  and  reflections  of  Chi- 
nese originals. 

If  in  Mongol  and  Manchu  we  are  close  upon  the 
absence  of  all  inflective  structure,  in  the  Chinese  we 
actually  reach  that  condition.  The  Chinese  is  a  tongue 
composed  of  about  five  hundred  separate  words,  as  we 
should  reckon  them,  each  a  monosyllable.  But  in  this 
language  tone  is  pressed  into  the  service  of  ordinary  in- 
tellectual distinction,  and  the  words  are  multiplied  to 
over  fifteen  hundred  by  the  significant  variety  of  into- 
nation. Nor  are  these  words,  like  English  monosyl- 
lables, worn-out  relics  of  a  formerly  inflected  condition 
of  speech;  there  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt  their  being 
the  actual  undeveloped  roots  of  the  language,  analogous 
with  the  Indo-European  roots  except  in  the  results  of 
use  by  an  enlightened  community  for  communication 
and  thought  during  thousands  of  years.  They  have 
been  crowded  with  meanings  of  every  kind,  and  of 
various  degrees  of  formality;  they  have  been  combined 
into*  standing  phrases,  with  balance  of  parts  and  unity 
of  emphasis,  as  in  our  I  shall  have  gone,  by  the  way, 
and  so  on;  many  of  them  have  become  auxiliaries, 
signs  of  relation,  indicators  of  special  uses  analogous 
with  those  of  our  parts  of  speech;  but  yet  they  have 
never  been  made  into  actual  parts  of  speech,  nor  united 
into  inflectional  systems.  If  they  had  gone  through 
any  such  process  as  this,  the  present  speech  would  show 
plainly  the  results  of  it :  there  would  be  a  much  greater 
number  and  variety  of  words;  they  would  fall  into  re- 
lated groups;  and  they  would  be  more  sharply  defined 


23S  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

and  discriminated  in  their  uses.  The  Chinese  word 
admits  of  employment  indifferently  as  one  and  another 
part  of  speech,  and  plainly  by  an  inherent  non-distinc- 
tion of  their  various  offices. 

The  Chinese  language  is  therefore,  in  one  most  im- 
portant and  fundamental  respect,  of  the  very  lowest 
grade  of  structure  and  poverty  of  resource.  But  it  is 
also  the  most  remarkable  example  in  the  world  of  a 
weak  instrumentality  which  is  made  the  means  of  ac- 
complishing great  things;  it  illustrates,  in  a  manner 
which  the  student  of  language  cannot  too  carefully 
heed,  the  truth  that  language  is  only  an  instrumentality, 
and  the  mind  the  force  that  uses  it;  that  the  mind, 
which  in  all  its  employment  of  speech  implies  a  great 
deal  more  than  it  expresses,  is  able  to  do  a  high  quality 
of  work  with  only  the  scantiest  hints  of  expression, 
catching  from  the  connection  and  from  position  the 
shades  of  meaning  and  the  modes  of  relation  which  it 
needs.  It  is  but  a  difference  of  degree  between  Chi- 
nese inexpressiveness  and  the  frequent  overloading  of 
distinctions  which  in  our  view  characterizes  some  of  the 
agglutinative  idioms:  for  example,  the  American  In- 
dian; and,  with  a  right  view  of  language,  one  is  as 
explainable  as  the  other.  A  few  scratches  on  a  board 
with  a  bit  of  charcoal  by  a  skilled  artist  may  be  more 
full  of  meaning,  may  speak  more  strongly  to  the  im- 
agination and  feeling,  than  a  picture  elaborated  by  an 
inferior  hand  with  all  the  resources  of  a  modern  art- 
school. 

The  abundant  and  varied  literature  of  China  goes 
back  in  its  beginnings  to  about  2000  b.  c,  an  antiquity 
exceeded  in  only  two  or  three  other  countries  of  the 
world.  Though  a  tongue  of  so  bald  structure  is  com- 
paratively little  liable  to  disguising  alteration,  the  Chi- 


MONOSYLLABIC  FAMILY.  239 

nese  of  to-day  is  quite  unlike  what  it  was  so  long  ago — 
to  what  extent  and  how,  learned  men  are  now  making 
effort  to  determine.  A  still  more  ohvious  measure  of 
the  progress  of  alteration  is  given  by  the  dialectic  vari- 
eties of  the  existing  language,  which  are  so  great  that 
almost  every  hundred  miles  along  the  southern  coast 
brings  one  to  a  new  speech,  nearly  or  quite  unintelli- 
gible to  dwellers  in  other  districts.  The  literary  dialect 
is  one  in  its  written  character,  but  somewhat  discordant 
in  its  spoken  form,  through  the  whole  empire.  Some 
hold  that  here  and  there,  in  the  dialects,  the  line  which 
separates  utter  uninflectedness  from  a  rude  agglutina- 
tion has  been  overstepped. 

The  various  languages  of  Farther  India — as  the  An- 
namese  or  Cochin-Chinese,  the  Siamese,  and  the  Bur- 
mese, with  the  tongues  of  numerous  other  wilder  and 
less  important  tribes  or  races — are  sufficiently  unlike  to 
Chinese  and  to  each  other  in  material  to  pass  for  wholly 
unrelated.  But  they  are  all  alike  in  the  capital  point 
that  they  are  uninflected;  and  this  cannot  but  be  re- 
garded as  a  strong  indication  of  ultimate  relationship 
between  them.  We  can  point  out,  indeed,  no  reason 
why  one  race  more  than  another  should  exhibit  an  in- 
capacity for  linguistic  development;  and  if  we  met 
with  monosyllabic  tongues  in  different  parts  of  the 
earth,  we  should  have  no  right  to  infer  their  connec- 
tion; but  that  the  dialects  of  one  corner  of  Asia  should 
share  a  peculiarity  so  exceptional  can  hardly  be  other 
than  the  result  of  a  common  fixation  of  the  monosyl- 
labic type.  At  any  rate  provisionally,  therefore,  we  class 
all  these  together  as  the  southeastern  Asiatic,  or  mono- 
syllabic family.  The  Farther  Indian  tongues  are  in- 
ferior to  the  Chinese  in  just  that  manner  and  degree 
which  was  to  be  expected  in  dialects  of  inferior  races 


240  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

and  lower  culture.  They  abound  in  such  means  of 
definition  as  auxiliaries  and  indicative  particles. 

How  far  the  limits  of  the  family  thus  constructed 
extend,  is  a  question  which  only  further  research  can 
determine.  Running  up  the  southern  border  of  the 
Asiatic  plateau,  from  northern  Farther  India  westward, 
is  a  region  occupied  by  a  great  and  far  from  homoge- 
neous mass  of  dialects,  generally  called  Himalayan,  of  a 
low  type  of  structure,  which  are  at  any  rate  not  suffi- 
ciently known  to  be  classified  as  distinct  from  the  fam- 
ily we  have  been  considering.  With  them  goes  the 
Tibetan,  though  this  has  an  alphabet,  of  Indian  origin, 
and  a  Buddhist  literature,  from  the  seventh  century 
down. 

Among  all  these  peoples,  the  position  of  the  Chinese 
is  a  striking  and  exceptional  one,  as  that  of  the  only 
race  possessing  a  wholly  independent  and  highly-devel- 
oped civilization,  with  attendant  literature.  It  is  some- 
what like  the  position  of  the  Accadians — if  they  be 
proved  Scythian — among  the  other  Scythian  peoples. 
China  has  been  as  grand  a  centre  of  light  to  all  its 
neighbors  as  Mesopotamia;  but  with  this  marked  differ- 
ence: by  a  persistency  which  is  one  of  the  most  strik- 
ing facts  in  the  history  of  the  world,  it  has  maintained 
its  own  institutions,  political  and  religious  and  linguis- 
tic, substantially  unchanged  from  the  very  dawn  of  the 
historic  period. 

The  nation  which  has  profited  most  by  Chinese 
teaching,  which  has  alone  shown  the  capacity  to  assimi- 
late and  continue  the  Chinese  culture,  with  adaptations 
to  its  own  peculiar  character,  is  the  Japanese.  It  is  of 
the  same  pronounced  physical  type  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  call  Mongolian.  Attempts  have  been  made 
to  connect  its  language  with  those  of  the  Mongols  and 


JAPANESE  LANGUAGE.  2^1 

Manchus,  but  they  have  not  met  with  approved  suc- 
cess, and  the  Japanese  still  stand  alone.  It  is  by  no 
means  monosyllabic,  but  rather  an  agglutinative  dialect 
of  extremely  simple  structure,  with  hardly  an  estab- 
lished distinction  between  noun  and  verb,  and  with  no 
determinate  flexion ;  the  relations  of  case  and  number 
and  person  are  indicated  by  analytic  means,  by  separate 
particles  or  auxiliary  words;  number  in  part  by  dupli- 
cation. Variations  of  the  radical  verbal  idea  akin  with 
those  exemplified  above  from  the  Turkish  are  also 
made,  by  various  compounded  elements.  Combination 
of  separate  root-words,  often  with  considerable  contrac- 
tion or  mutilation,  is  very  common ;  but  it  does  not  tend, 
as  with  us,  to  the  production  of  formative  elements  and 
of  forms,  except  coarsely  and  restrictedly.  Eelatives 
and  subordinating  conjunctions  are  wanting.  The 
language  is  burdened  with  the  over-elaborate  recogni- 
tion of  degrees  of  dignity  in  the  speaker  and  the  per- 
sons addressed  or  spoken  of,  almost  to  the  disuse  of 
simple  pronouns.  The  Chinese  vocabulary  is  imported 
en  masse  into  the  more  learned  styles,  especially  of 
writing.  The  phonetic  structure  of  the  language  is 
very  simple  and  euphonious.  The  oldest  literary  re- 
mains are  from  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries. 

The  shores  and  peninsulas  and  islands  of  the  north- 
eastern corner  of  Asia  are  occupied  by  a  variety  of  races 
and  languages,  which  are  too  little  known,  and  of  too 
little  interest,  to  demand  attention  from  us  in  this  hasty 
review. 

On  the  islands,  however,  which  lie  off  the  south- 
eastern part  of  the  continent,  and  through  most  of  the 
groups  and  isolated  islets  that  dot  the  Pacific,  north  to 
Formosa,  east  to  Easter  island,  south  to  New  Zealand, 
and  west  even  to  Madagascar,  on  the  very  border  of 


242  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

Africa,  are  found  the  scattered  members  of  a  vast  and 
perfectly  well-developed  family,  the  Malay-Polynesian. 
From  what  central  point  the  migrations  of  the  tribes 
and  their  dialects  took  place,  it  is  not  possible  to  tell: 
the  family  is  strictly  an  insular  one,  the  hold  which  a 
part  of  the  Malays  have  on  the  mainland  in  Malacca 
being  only  recently  gained  (since  the  twelfth  century). 
The  Malays  proper  have  adopted  Mohammedanism,  and 
taken  for  use  the  Arabic  alphabet;  and  they  have  a 
tolerably  abundant  literature,  reaching  up  into  the 
fourteenth  century.  Some  of  the  other  less  conspicu- 
ous tribes — as  the  Battaks,  Mancassars,  and  Bugis,  and 
the  Tagalas  of  the  Philippines — have  alphabets,  which 
are  believed  to  come  ultimately  from  India,  but  nothing 
that  can  fairly  be  called  a  literature.  But  in  Java  and 
its  dependencies,  especially  Bali,  the  introduction  of 
culture  and  writing  from  India  dates  back  even  to  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  with  a  considerable  literature, 
founded  on  the  Sanskrit.  Elsewhere  in  the  family, 
record  begins  only  with  the  labors  of  Christian  mis- 
sionaries in  the  most  recent  period. 

The  family  is  divided  (Friedrich  Miiller)  into  three 
great  branches:  1.  The  Malayan,  filling  on  the  one 
hand  the  great  islands  nearest  to  Asia,  and  on  the  other 
hand  the  Philippine  and  Ladrone  groups;  2.  The 
Polynesian,  in  most  of  the  smaller  groups,  with  Xew 
Zealand  and  Madagascar;  3.  The  Melanesian,  of  the 
Fijian  and  other  archipelagos  off  the  northeastern  cor- 
ner of  Australia.  The  various  Polynesian  dialects  are 
clearly  and  closely  related;  the  Melanesian  show  the 
extreme  of  dialectic  division,  with  other  peculiarities — 
which,  along  with  the  darker  hue  and  other  physical 
differences  of  their  speakers,  have  been  plausibly  ex- 
plained as  due  to  an  imposition  of  Polynesian  speech 


MALAY-POLYNESIAN  FAMILY.  243 

upon  a  population  chiefly  Papuan.  The  Malayan  di- 
alects are  farthest  developed,  making  most  approach 
toward  something  like  a  rude  flexion.  For,  in  general, 
the  languages  of  the  family  are  almost  as  bare  of  de- 
rivative and  inflectional  combinations  as  is  the  Chinese 
itself;  their  grammatical  relations  are  indicated  by  pro- 
nouns and  particles,  which  only  in  the  Malayan  group, 
and  in  derivation  rather  than  inflection,  take  on  the 
aspect  of  affixes:  gender,  case,  number,  mood,  tense, 
person,  are  wanting;  nor  is  there  any  distinction  of 
noun  from  verb;  the  verb  is  a  substantive  or  adjective 
used  predicatively  without  copula.  The  roots,  if  we 
may  call  them  so,  the  most  ultimate  elements  accessible 
to  our  analysis,  are  prevailingly  dissyllabic;  and  their 
reduplication,  either  complete  or  by  abbreviation,  is  a 
means  of  variation  of  which  great  use  is  made,  and  for 
very  various  purposes.  Only  the  pronouns  have  dis- 
tinct numeral  forms,  and  the  first  person  has  the  double 
plural,  inclusive  or  exclusive  of  the  person  addressed, 
referred  to  above  (pp.  218,  219).  The  determinative 
particles  are  more  often  prefixed  than  suffixed. 

The  Malay-Polynesian  languages  are  more  simple  in 
regard  to  their  phonetic  structure  than  any  others  in 
the  world.  Hardly  any  of  them  have  more  than  ten 
consonants;  many  only  seven.  And  they  do  not  allow 
a  syllable  to  begin  with  more  than  one  consonant,  or  to 
close  with  a  consonant. 

Not  the  whole  population  of  the  Pacific  islands 
belongs  to  this  family.  The  mass  of  the  great  islands 
Borneo  and  New  Guinea,  with  the  more  inaccessible 
parts  of  the  Philippines  and  others,  are  inhabited  by  a 
black  and  woolly-haired  race,  the  Papuans  or  Negritos, 
resembling  the  Africans  though  not  related  with  them, 
and  quite  distinct  from  the  Malay-Polynesians,  by  whose 


244  FAMILIES  OP  LANGUAGE. 

incursions  they  have  been  exterminated  or  crowded 
back  from  parts  of  their  ancient  possessions.  Their 
languages  are  almost  utterly  unknown. 

Australia,  again,  and  the  neighboring  Tasmania, 
were  inhabited,  when  discovered,  by  a  third  island-race, 
of  dark  color  but  straight-haired,  and  of  nearly  or  quite 
the  lowest  known  grade  of  endowment.  Their  greatly 
varying  dialects  are  polysyllabic  and  agglutinative,  of 
simple  phonetic  character,  and  especially  different  from 
the  Polynesian  in  using  exclusively  suffixed  instead  of 
prefixed  particles. 

In  reviewing  the  Indian  branch  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean family,  we  saw  that  the  tribes  of  our  kindred  had 
worked  their  way  in  through  the  passes  of  the  north- 
west, driving  out  or  subjecting  a  more  aboriginal  pop- 
ulation. This  primitive  race  still  holds  in  possession 
most  of  the  great  southern  peninsula,  beyond  the  chain 
of  mountains  and  wild  highlands  which  cuts  it  off  from 
the  wide  valleys  of  Hindustan  proper.  The  so-called 
"  Dravidians  "  number  thirty  to  forty  millions :  their 
principal  languages  are  the  Tamil,  Telugu,  Canarese, 
and  Malayalam  or  Malabar;  there  are  several  others,  of 
inferior  importance;  and  the  Brahui,  of  Beluchistan, 
has  been  claimed  to  show  signs  of  affinity  with  the 
group.  The  Dravidian  tongues  have  some  peculiar 
phonetic  elements,  are  richly  polysyllabic,  of  general 
agglutinative  structure,  with  prefixes  only,  and  very 
soft  and  harmonious  in  their  utterance;  they  are  of  a 
very  high  type  of  agglutination,  like  the  Finnish  and 
Hungarian;  and  the  author  has  been  informed  by  an 
American  who  was  born  in  southern  India  and  grew 
up  to  speak  its  language  vernacularly  along  with  his 
English,  a  man  of  high  education  and  unusual  gifts  as 
a  preacher  and  writer,  that  he  esteemed  the  Tamil  a 


CAUCASIAN  LANGUAGE.  245 

finer  language  to  think  and  speak  in  than  any  European 
tongue  known  to  him. 

Excepting  that  they  show  no  trace  of  the  harmonic 
sequence  of  vowels,  these  languages  are  not  in  their 
structure  so  different  from  the  Scythian  that  they  might 
not  belong  to  one  family  with  them,  if  only  sufficient 
correspondences  of  material  were  found  between  the 
two  groups.  And  some  have  been  ready,  though  on 
grounds  not  to  be  accepted  as  sufficient,  to  declare  them 
related.  The  comparative  grammar  of  the  Scythian 
languages  has  not  yet  been  so  reduced  to  form  that  it 
should  be  possible  to  define  the  boundaries  of  the  fami- 
ly, either  on  the  east  or  in  the  south. 

Among  the  less  familiar  languages  of  Asia  we  have 
occasion  to  notice  further  only  that  intricate  and  prob- 
lematical group  known  as  the  Caucasian.  As  the  name 
denotes,  its  locality  is  the  region  between  the  Caspian 
and  Black  Seas,  filled  by  the  Caucasus  range  and  its 
dependent  hills  and  valleys.  The  chief  dialects  on  the 
south  of  the  main  crest  are  the  Georgian,  Suanian,  Min- 
grelian,  and  Lazian,  all  plainly  related  to  one  another, 
and  the  first  having  an  alphabet,  derived  along  with  its 
religion  from  Armenia,  and  a  literature  of  some  an- 
tiquity. The  principal  groups  on  the  north  are  the 
Circassian,  Mitsjeghian,  and  Lesghian,  the  first  border- 
ing the  Black  Sea,  the  last  the  Caspian.  The  variety  of 
sub-dialects,  especially  of  the  Lesghian,  is  very  great. 
There  is  no  demonstrated  affinity  between  the  southern 
and  northern  divisions,  nor  between  the  members  of  the 
northern;  how  many  independent  groups  there  may  be 
is  yet  undetermined;  and  also,  whether  there  is  any 
tie  of  analogical  structure  to  bind  them  together  into  a 
family,  or  whether  they  are  the  relics  of  ultimately 
separate   families,   left   stranded,   as   it   were,   on   the 


246  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

mountains,  and  defended  by  them  and  by  the  great  seas 
in  front  and  behind  from  the  movements  of  migration 
which  have  swept  the  families  elsewhere  out  of  ex- 
istence. 

Last  among  the  Asiatic  languages,  we  come  to  the 
Semitic,  so  called  because  in  the  genealogies  of  the 
Genesis  the  communities  which  speak  them  are  mostly 
described  as  descendants  of  Shem.  They  fill  the  im- 
mense, but  barren  and  thinly-populated  peninsula  of 
Arabia,  with  its  northern  border-lands,  of  Mesopotamia 
and  Syria  and  Palestine,  and  with  a  district  in  Abys- 
sinia, lying  opposite  its  southwest  corner.  The  north- 
ern division  is  composed  of  the  Assyrian  and  Babylo- 
nian, the  Canaanitic  dialects  (chief  among  them  the 
Hebrew  and  Phoenician),  and  the  Syrian,  or  Aramaic; 
the  southern  division  contains  the  Arabic  and  Abys- 
sinian dialects.  This  is  their  ancient  territory :  the 
Phoenician  was  carried  to  its  colonies,  and,  as  Car- 
thaginian, might  perhaps  have  become  the  tongue  of 
Mediterranean  civilization,  but  that  the  long  struggle 
for  supremacy  ended  with  the  complete  overthrow  of 
Carthage  by  Eome;  the  Hebrew,  replaced  in  vernacu- 
lar use,  even  in  its  own  home,  four  centuries  before 
Christ,  by  the  Syrian  (Chaldee,  Aramaic),  has  led  ever 
since  the  artificial  life  of  a  learned  language,  scattered 
among  the  civilized  nations;  the  Arabic,  as  the  sacred 
dialect  of  a  conquering  people  and  religion,  has  been 
carried,  since  the  seventh  century,  over  a  part  of  the 
world  comparable  with  that  which  the  Latin  came  final- 
ly to  occupy:  it  is  the  speech  of  the  whole  northern 
border  of  Africa;  it  has  crowded  out  the  other  Semitic 
branches,  and  has  filled  with  its  words  the  Persian, 
Turkish,  and  Hindustani,  and  to  a  less  extent  the  Malay 
and  Spanish  vocabularies.    It  has  given  birth,  however, 


SEMITIC  FAMILY.  247 

to  no  such  group  of  independent  derived  languages  as 
the  Latin  can  show. 

The  ancient  Hebrew  literature  is  familiar  to  us  far 
beyond  the  rest,  being  our  "  Bible ; "  its  earliest  parts 
go  back  into  the  second  thousand  years  before  Christ. 
The  Phoenician  has  left  no  literature,  and  the  inscribed 
coffin  of  a  king  of  Sidon  (probably  500  b.  c.)  is  its  chief 
monument;  a  very  recently  discovered  Moabite  tablet 
(of  900  b.  c.)  gives  us  a  specimen  of  another  ancient 
Canaanitic  dialect,  almost  identical  with  Hebrew.  The 
Aramaic  has  an  abundant  Greco-Christian  literature, 
beginning  from  the  second  century,  besides  its  share  in 
the  Talmudic  writings.  The  Assyrian  has  a  fragmen- 
tary literature  in  the  inscriptions  and  tablets  of  Nineveh 
and  Babylon,  from  a  period  beyond  that  of  the  earliest 
Hebrew.  The  Arabic  begins  its  record  mainly  with 
the  rise  of  Islam;  since  that  time  it  is  one  of  the  rich- 
est literatures  in  the  world.  In  southwest  Arabia  pre- 
vailed a  very  different  body  of  dialects,  usually  styled 
Himyaritie,  now  preserved  only  in  the  jealously-guard- 
ed remains  of  an  earlier  civilization.  With  the  Him- 
yaritie is  most  nearly  akin  the  Abyssinian  group,  which, 
in  two  principal  literary  dialects,  the  earlier  Geez  or 
Ethiopic  and  the  later  Amharic,  has  a  considerable  lit- 
erature, beginning  in  the  fourth  century. 

The  Semitic  family  of  languages  and  races  is,  after 
the  Indo-European,  by  far  the  most  prominent  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  None  but  the  Semites  have,  since 
the  dawn  of  the  historic  period,  seriously  disputed  with 
our  family  the  headship  of  the  human  race;  and,  of  the 
three  great  conquering  religions,  two,  Christianity  and 
Mohammedanism,  are  of  Semitic  birth — although  the 
former  won  its  world-wide  dominion  in  connection  with 
its  transfer  to  the  hands  of  Indo-Europeans,  the  Greeks 


248  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

and  Romans.  That  we  have  put  off,  then,  our  exami- 
nation of  Semitic  language  to  this  point  is  mainly  ow- 
ing to  its  exceptional  and  anomalous  character.  Semitic 
speech  stands  more  alone  in  the  world  than  any  other, 
than  even  the  nakedly  isolating  Chinese  or  the  indefi- 
nitely synthetic  American.  For,  as  regards  all  other 
tongues,  the  basis  of  radical  elements  and  the  principle 
of  their  combination  being  given,  it  is  easy  enough  in 
theory  to  explain  their  various  structures,  as  products 
of  one  general  method  of  development.  But  no  such 
thing  is  at  present  practicable  for  the  Semitic;  this 
contains  two  characteristics — the  triliterality  of  the  roots 
and  their  inflection  by  internal  change,  by  variation  of 
vowel — which  belong  to  it  alone. 

What  we  call  the  Semitic  root,  namely,  is  (except  in 
the  pronouns  and  a  wholly  insignificant  number  of 
other  cases)  a  conglomerate  of  three  consonants,  no 
more  and  no  less:  thus,  for  example,  q-t-l  represents 
the  conception  of  '  killing,'  Jc-t-b  that  of  '  writing.'  By 
this  is  not  meant,  of  course,  that  such  conglomerates 
were,  like  the  Indo-European  roots,  the  historical  germs 
of  a  body  of  derivative  forms;  but,  as  we  arrive  at  the 
root  in  Indo-European  by  taking  off  the  variously  ac- 
creted formative  elements,  we  arrive  at  such  a  Semitic 
root  by  removing  its  formative  elements.  The  latter 
includes  no  vowel  that  has  an  identity  to  preserve;  the 
addition  of  any  vowel  makes  a  form.  Thus,  in  Arabic 
(the  best  preserved  and  most  transparent  in  structure  of 
the  various  dialects),  qatala  is  a  verbal  third  singular, 
'  he  killed ; '  as  it  were,  the  base  of  a  system  of  per- 
sonal forms,  made,  like  ours,  by  pronominal  endings : 
thus,  qataltu,  '  I  killed,'  qatalat,  'she  killed,'  qataltuma, 
'  ye  two  killed,'  qatalnd,  '  we  killed.'  A  change  of  vow- 
els, to  qutila,  makes  of  it  a  passive,  ' he  was  killed;' 


SEMITIC  FAMILY.  249 

and  from  this  we  have  by  a  like  process  qutiltu,  quiilat, 
quliliuma,  qulilna,  etc.  Another  change,  to  aqtala, 
signifies  '  he  caused  to  kill/  with  its  passive  uqtila;  and 
so  on.  Then  (u)qtul  is  imperative,  'kill!'  and  some- 
thing like  this  is  base  of  another  set  of  persons,  formed 
partly  by  prefixes,  partly  by  suffixes:  as  yaqtulu,  'he 
kills/  taqtulu,  '  she  kills/  yaqtuluna,  '  they  (men)  kill/ 
naqtulu,  '  we  kill/  etc.  Then,  qdtil  is  present  participle, 
'  killing,'  and  qatl  infinitive,  '  act  of  killing ; '  while 
iqtal  is  '  causing  to  kill '  as  noun,  and  muqtil  the  same 
as  adjective.  And  qitl,  '  enemy,'  and  qutl,  '  murder- 
ous/ are  specimens  of  derivative  noun  and  adjective. 
These  forms  at  once  suggest  our  sing,  sang,  etc.,  already 
often  used  as  illustrations ;  yet  there  is  an  immense  dif- 
ference between  the  two  cases :  the  Semitic  phenomena 
are  infinitely  more  intricate  and  various;  and  then  they 
are  the  very  life  and  soul  of  the  inflection  of  the  lan- 
guage, not  in  a  single  item  reducible  to  anything  more 
original,  out  of  which  they  should  be  seen  to  grow,  by 
an  "  inorganic  "  process.  If  we  could  conceive  that,  at 
some  peculiarly  plastic  period  in  the  history  of  a  Ger- 
manic dialect,  by  an  abnormal  extension  of  the  analogy 
of  sing,  sang,  etc.,  the  popular  taste  taking  a  sudden 
bent  toward  such  formations,  all  the  rest  of  the  lan- 
guage should  come  to  be  patterned  after  that  model, 
with  consequent  complete  oblivion  of  the  state  of  things 
out  of  which  sing,  sang,  etc.  proceeded — that  would  be 
something  analogous  with  the  present  condition  of  Se- 
mitic. 

The  other  peculiarities  of  the  language  are  trifling 
as  compared  with  these,  not  different  in  kind  or  degree 
from  such  as  are  variously  found  in  other  tongues.  The 
structure  of  the  verb  is  quite  unlike  ours.    The  element 

of  time  does  not  enter  distinctly  into  it;  the  (only)  two 
17 


250  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

so-called  tenses  are  explained  as  indicating  primarily 
complete  and  incomplete  action,  and  each  fills  various 
offices  of  tense.  In  Assyrian,  the  tense  of  complete 
action  has  gone  almost  entirely  out  of  use.  Of  forms 
analogous  with  our  moods,  too,  there  is  great  poverty. 
But,  as  we  have  found  the  case  in  more  than  one  other 
family,  there  is  a  disposition  to  the  formation  of  numer- 
ous conjugations  from  one  root,  representing  the  radical 
idea  in  a  causative,  a  reflexive,  an  intensive,  a  conative 
form,  and  so  on.  In  Arabic,  where  these  changes  are 
fullest,  there  are  some  fifteen  such  conjugations;  and 
about  a  dozen  of  them,  each  with  its  passive,  are  in  tol- 
erably frequent  use.  The  tense  of  incomplete  action 
(yaqtulu,  etc.)  has  the  aspect  of  being  younger  than 
the  other,  and  of  standing  at  only  one  remove  from  a 
noun;  since  its  endings  of  number  are  mainly  coinci- 
dent with  those  of  ordinary  noun  inflection,  and  it  de- 
notes person  by  prefixes,  while  the  other  (qatala,  etc.) 
indicates  person  and  number  together  by  added  end- 
ings, evidently  of  pronominal  origin.  Both  tenses  dis- 
tinguish masculine  from  feminine  subject,  except  in  the 
first  person.  We  find  the  distinction  of  gender  (mas- 
culine and  feminine  only)  here  again  for  the  first  time 
since  we  left  the  Indo-European  family.  The  nouns 
have  the  same  three  numbers  as  the  verb,  but  of  case 
distinction  there  is  almost  nothing.  Derived  nouns  are 
formed  by  the  help  both  of  internal  flexion  and  of  ex- 
ternal additions,  both  prefixes  and  suffixes;  but  only 
directly  from  the  root :  those  successive  derivations,  by 
ending  added  to  ending,  in  which  the  Indo-European 
abounds  (as  true,  tru-tli,  truth-ful,  un-tvutliful-ly)  are 
quite  unknown.  Nor  are  compounds  formed,  save  in 
exceptional  cases.  Finally,  connecting  particles,  as 
means  of  the  intertwining  and  subordination  of  clauses, 


SEMITIC  FAMILY.  251 

their  conversion  into  a  period,  are  almost  wanting: 
Semitic  style  is  bald  and  simple,  proceeding  from  asser- 
tion to  assertion.  Another  marked  peculiarity  is  the 
persistency  of  radical  meaning  in  derivative  and  figura- 
tive expression:  the  metaphorical  or  other  transfer  by 
which  a  new  term  is  won,  instead  of  soon  passing  out 
of  memory,  as  in  Indo-European,  lets  the  old  meaning 
continue  to  show  through.  Picturesqueness,  pictorial 
vividness,  therefore,  are  leading  characteristics  of  Se- 
mitic language. 

The  scale  of  dialectic  differences  is  much  less  in 
Semitic  than  in  Indo-European;  all  the  great  branches, 
even,  are  as  it  were  the  closely  related  members  of  a 
single  branch.  This  is  not  necessarily  because  their 
separation  has  been  more  recent  than  that  of  the 
branches  of  our  family;  for  Semitic  speech  has  shown 
itself  much  more  rigid  and  changeless  than  Indo-Euro- 
pean— or,  it  is  believed,  than  any  other  variety  of  hu- 
man speech.  The  ground  of  this  difference  doubtless 
lies  partly  in  the  character  of  the  speakers;  but  it  is 
also  in  part  to  be  plainly  read  in  the  character  of  the 
language  itself,  with  its  rigid  framework  of  three  con- 
sonants appearing  in  the  whole  body  of  derivatives  of 
each  root,  with  its  significant  and  therefore  more  care- 
fully maintained  variations  of  vowel,  and  with  its  in- 
capacity of  new  formations  by  composition.  Its  primi- 
tive development,  if  development  it  was,  was  into  so 
individual  and  sharply  defined  a  type  that  it  has  since 
been  comparatively  exempt  from  variation. 

There  are  two  ways  of  looking  at  the  peculiarities 
of  Semitic  structure.  One,  by  far  the  simpler  and 
more  comfortable,  is  to  pronounce  them  original  and 
inexplicable,  an  indefeasible  part  of  the  appanage  of 
the  Semitic  mind,  to  be  taken  as  presented,  and  no 


252  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

questions  asked.  This,  however,  is  virtually  to  declare 
them  outside  the  pale  of  science,  to  abnegate  with  re- 
gard to  them  the  right  of  the  linguistic  student  to  ask 
after  the  why  of  what  he  finds  anywhere  in  language. 
The  other  way  is  to  put  this  question  and  pursue  it,  not 
daunted  by  the  acknowledged  difficulties  of  the  case. 
If  all  other  languages  have  had  a  history  of  develop- 
ment into  their  present  shape,  then  doubtless  the  Se- 
mitic also;  if  all  the  rest  have  started  from  pronounce- 
able roots,  composed  of  a  combination  of  consonant  and 
vowel,  and  have  grown  by  external  accretion  of  other 
similar  elements  to  these,  then  it  is  not  lightly  to  be 
believed  that  the  Semitic  has  not  done  the  same.  That 
is  to  say,  there  must  probably  lie  behind  the  consonantal 
triple  roots  and  the  internal  flexion  of  the  Semitic 
something  more  analogous  with  what  is  seen  to  lie  at 
the  basis  of  all  other  human  speech;  and  there  must 
have  been  a  history  of  change  from  the  one  of  these 
conditions  to  the  other — whether  we  shall  or  shall  not 
prove  able  to  retrace  the  history  and  restore  the  primi- 
tive condition.  Most  linguistic  scholars,  as  might  be 
expected,  take  the  latter  view;  and  the  attempt  has 
been  repeatedly  made  to  reduce  the  roots  to  a  more 
primitive  form;  but  no  definite  and  solid  results  have 
been  yet  attained.  The  most  plausible  conjectural  ac- 
count of  the  matter,  probably,  yet  suggested  has  been 
that  the  universality  of  the  three  root-consonants  is  due 
(as  in  our  hypothetical  case  above)  to  the  inorganic  ex- 
tension of  an  analogy  which  had  in  some  way  become  a 
dominant  one;  and  that  a  stage  of  dissyllabic  or  trisyl- 
labic derivative  nouns  lies  between  the  primitive  roots 
and  their  present  shape.  But  to  offer  a  plausible  con- 
jecture is  one  thing,  and  to  demonstrate  its  value  as  a 
true  explanation  is  another;  and  until  something  like 


RELATION  OF  SEMITIC  TO  OTHER  FAMILIES.     253 

a  demonstration  is  reached  (which  possibly  may  never 
be),  there  will  doubtless  continue  to  be  those  who 
will  look  upon  Semitic  triliterality  and  internal  flexion 
as  original,  as  not  only  inaccessible  to  explanation  but 
calling  for  none. 

It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  with  the  retrac- 
ing of  Semitic  root-history  is  indissolubly  bound  up  the 
historical  connection  of  Semitic  language  with  any  other 
form  of  human  speech.  So  long  as  Semitic  flexion  re- 
mains what  it  is,  it  cannot  be  identified  with  that  of 
any  other  language;  so  long  as  Semitic  roots  remain 
what  they  are,  no  resemblances  which  may  be  traced 
between  them  and  those  of  any  other  language  can  have 
real  value.  It  has  been  a  favorite  subject  of  effort  with 
scholars,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  linguistic  study,  to 
connect  the  germs  of  Semitic  and  Indo-European  speech, 
and  to  prove  the  two  families  and  the  races  that  speak 
them  branches  of  an  ultimately  common  stock.  There 
are  many  things  which  tempt  to  this :  the  two  peoples 
are,  at  the  beginning  of  their  cultural  history,  near 
neighbors  and  mutual  helpers;  they  are  the  two  great 
conquering  and  civilizing  white  races,  exchanging  in- 
fluence and  institutions  with  one  another  through  the 
ages :  how  natural  to  connect  them  more  closely  with 
one  another  than  with  mankind  in  general !  This  con- 
sideration goes  all  the  way  back  to  the  representation 
of  Shem  and  Japhet  as  sons  of  one  father.  But  here, 
again,  plausible  theory  is  one  thing,  and  scientific  dem- 
onstration another.  If  the  items  of  apparent  agree- 
ment which  great  scholars  have  hunted  up  between 
Semitic  and  Indo-European  had  been  pointed  out  as 
existing  between  Indo-European  and  Zulu  or  Papuan, 
no  one  would  think  them  of  any  account;  and  they  are 
really  worth  no  more  where  they  are,  as  scientific  evi- 


254  FAMILIES  OP  LANGUAGE. 

denee.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  on  that,  until 
the  anomalies  of  Semitic  language  are  at  least  measur- 
ably explained,  it  is  too  soon  to  say  anything  about  a 
relation  between  it  and  any  other  tongue. 

The  same  rule  is  to  be  applied  to  the  current  asser- 
tions of  Semitic  relationship  in  the  opposite  direction, 
with  the  tongues  which  are  grouped  together  to  form 
the  "  Hamitic  "  family.  In  this  family,  the  Egyptian 
occupies  the  same  commanding  position  as  the  Chinese 
among  the  monosyllabic  tongues  of  southeastern  Asia. 
Egypt  is  the  home  of  by  far  the  oldest  civilization  of 
which  we  have  any  records.  The  question  as  to  the 
chronology  of  its  earliest  monuments  is  not,  to  be  sure, 
settled  beyond  dispute;  but  the  present  tendency  of 
scientific  inquiry  seems  decidedly  toward  recognizing  as 
well  founded  even  the  extreme  claims  put  forth  respect- 
ing them,  and  fixing  the  reign  of  the  first  historical 
king  at  nearly  4000  b.  c.  ;  and  even  at  that  time  the 
race  must  have  been  a  powerful  one,  with  a  highly  de- 
veloped civilization.  The  knowledge  of  Egyptian  lan- 
guage has  been  recovered  in  our  own  century,  after 
being  utterly  lost  for  near  two  thousand  years,  and  re- 
markable discoveries  of  new  material  in  the  country 
itself,  and  advances  in  Egyptian  learning  in  Europe, 
are  at  this  very  time  going  on;  so  that  many  of  the 
historical  and  chronological  questions  about  which  we 
are  disputing  will  be  fully  settled  for  the  generation 
that  succeeds  us. 

The  key  to  the  decipherment  of  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tian was  furnished  in  its  descendant,  the  modern  Cop- 
tic. The  Coptic  records  are  Christian  only,  written  in 
an  alphabet  derived  from  the  Greek,  and  dating  back 
to  the  early  centuries  of  our  era.  But  the  language 
was  extinguished  in  vernacular  use  by  the  Arabic,  three 


EGYPTIAN  LANGUAGE.  255 

or  four  centuries  ago.  Several  slightly  different  dia- 
lects are  to  be  recognized  in  its  literary  remains. 

The  Egyptian  language,  old  and  new,  was  of  the 
utmost  simplicity  of  structure.  It  hardly  knew  a  dis- 
tinction between  root  and  word;  its  fundamental  ele- 
ments (not  always  monosyllabic)  were  brought  directly 
into  the  combinations  of  the  sentence,  without  formal 
means  of  distinction  of  one  part  of  speech  from  an- 
other. Nor  even  in  inflection  is  such  distinction  clearly 
made;  noun  and  verb  are  separated  in  part  by  the  con- 
nection only :  ran-i,  for  example,  is  literally  '  naming- 
mine,'  and  means  either  '  my  name  '  or  '  I  name  or  call.' 
The  personal  inflection  of  the  verb  is  by  means  of  af- 
fixed pronouns,  loosely  agglutinated  to  it,  that  of  the 
third  person  being  omissible  when  a  subject  noun  is 
expressed.  Mood  and  tense  are  marked,  within  narrow 
limits,  by  prefixed  auxiliary  words.  The  noun  has  no 
declension:  relations  of  case  are  denoted  by  connec- 
tives; its  use  as  noun  is  generally  marked  by  a  prefixed 
"  article."  And  in  this  article,  as  in  the  pronominal 
elements  generally,  is  made  in  the  singular  a  distinction 
of  masculine  and  feminine  gender — a  marked  peculiar- 
ity of  the  language,  putting  it  so  far  into  one  class  with 
the  Semitic  and  Indo-European.  This  particular,  how- 
ever, is  one  of  which  the  reach  and  importance  are  wont 
to  be  greatly  exaggerated;  in  its  general  character,  the 
language  can  sustain  no  comparison  at  all  with  the  other 
two  mentioned;  it  is  little  richer  or  more  developed 
than  the  lowest  tongues  of  the  eastern  Asiatic  races. 

It  must  be  clearly  apparent  from  this  description 
how  venturesome  is  the  assertion  of  a  relationship  be- 
tween the  Egyptian  and  Semitic.  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
certain  remarkable  resemblances  between  the  pronouns 
of  the  two  languages;  but  to  rely  on  these  as  sufficient 


256  FAMILIES  OP  LANGUAGE. 

proof  of  connection  is  not  an  acceptable  proceeding. 
In  many  languages,  signs  of  relationship,  abundantly 
traceable  through  their  whole  material,  are  especially 
conspicuous  in  the  pronouns;  of  connection  proved  by 
pronominal  evidence  solely,  or  chiefly,  there  are  no  ex- 
amples. And  the  question  is,  whether  pronominal 
words  could  possibly  retain  an  almost  undisguised  iden- 
tity while  the  rest  of  the  language  was  undergoing  such 
a  tremendous  revolution  as  should  alone  be  able  to  con- 
vert Egyptian  poverty  of  inflection  and  fixity  of  root 
and  freedom  of  radical  form  into  the  strictly  regulated 
wealth  and  internal  flexion  of  the  Semitic.  And  the 
provisional  answer  must  be  in  the  negative.  We  do 
not  need  to  deny  the  possibility  of  ultimately  proving 
the  Semitic  related  with  the  Hamitic,  any  more  than 
with  the  Indo-European;  we  have  only  to  see  that  no 
sufficient  evidence  of  it  has  yet  been  brought  forward, 
nor  is  likely  to  be  so  until  the  riddle  of  Semitic  struct- 
ure is  solved. 

Two  other  groups  of  languages  in  northern  and 
northeastern  Africa  are  held  to  be  ultimately  related 
with  the  Egyptian,  forming  along  with  it  the  Hamitic 
family.  They  are  the  Libyan  or  Berber  group  (Kabyle 
and  Tamashek,  and,  more  doubtfully,  Hausa),  and, 
southward  from  Egypt,  the  Ethiopian,  or  Cushitic  group 
(Beja,  Galla,  Dankali,  Somali,  etc.). 

Nearly  the  whole  of  the  narrower  southern  penin- 
sula of  Africa  is  occupied  by  the  branches  of  a  single 
very  distinct  family,  best  called  the  South-African 
(known  also  as  Bantu,  Chuana,  Zingian).  It  has  no 
culture  and  no  literature,  except  what  it  has  produced 
by  the  aid  of  Christian  missionaries  in  the  most  recent 
time.  It  is  strikingly  characterized  by  its  extensive  use 
of  prefixes :   a  word  without  a  formative  prefix  being 


SOUTH-AFRICAN  FAMILY.  257 

here  nearly  as  unknown  as,  in  the  synthetic  period  of 
Indo-European,  a  word  without  a  formative  suffix. 
Different  prefixes  distinguish  various  classes  of  nouns, 
and  numbers  in  those  classes :  thus,  in  Zulu,  um-fana 
is  'boy,'  and  aba-fana  'boys;'  in-komo  is  'cow,'  and 
izin-komo  '  cows ; '  ili-zwe  is  '  country,'  and  ama-zwe 
'  countries,'  and  so  on.  Then,  in  the  clauses  into  which 
any  one  of  these  words  enters  as  dominant  member, 
other  members  relating  to  them — as  adjectives,  posses- 
sives,  verbs — take  into  their  structure  representative 
parts  of  the  same  prefix :  e.  g.  aba-fana  b-ami  aba-kulu, 
ba  tanda,  '  my  large  boys,  they  love ; '  but  izin-komo 
z-ami  izin-kulu,  zi  tanda,  '  my  large  cows,  they  love.' 
This  is  like  Latin  or  Greek  inverted;  an  alliterative 
instead  of  a  rhyming  congruence.  Verbal  mood  and 
tense  are  signified  in  part  by  suffixes,  as  are  also  con- 
jugational  distinctions  analogous  with  those  made  in 
Scythian  and  Semitic  language :  thus,  from  bona,  '  see,' 
come  bonisa,  '  show,'  bonana,  '  see  each  other,'  bonisana, 
'  show  each  other,'  and  so  on.  Case-relations  are  sig- 
nified by  prefixed  prepositions.  The  South-African 
languages  are  thus  by  no  means  unprovided  with  the 
formal  means  of  sufficiently  various  distinction.  Those 
of  them  which  border  on  the  Hottentot  dialects  have  in 
their  alphabets  peculiar  sounds  called  "  clicks,"  made 
by  sharp  separation  of  the  tongue  from  the  roof  of  the 
mouth,  with  suction. 

The  clicks  are  a  marked  feature  of  the  Hottentot, 
and  look  as  if  they  had  been  introduced  into  the  South- 
African  from  thence,  perhaps  along  with  mixture  of 
blood.  There  is  no  relationship  whatever  between  the 
two  families;  nor,  probably,  between  the  Hottentot  and 
the  Bushman.  Of  the  last  mentioned,  the  scientific  in- 
vestigation is  now  just  beginning   (Bleek)  ;  the  other, 


258  FAMILIES  OP  LANGUAGE. 

chiefly  on  the  ground  of  its  partial  distinction  of  gen- 
ders, has  been  by  some  accounted  a  branch  of  the 
Hamitic  family,  strayed  away  into  the  far  south  and 
greatly  degraded  in  type;  but  the  connection  is  con- 
fidently denied  by  others. 

Between  the  South-African  and  Hamitic  domains, 
in  a  broad  band  extending  across  the  widest  part  of  the 
African  continent,  is  found  an  intricate  and  heterogene- 
ous mass  of  dialects,  of  which  the  classification  is  a 
matter  of  much  difference  of  opinion  among  even  the 
latest  investigators,  and  which  are  of  too  little  impor- 
tance to  be  dwelt  on  by  us.  The  region  is  that  of  the 
typical  negro;  yet  there  are  also  in  it  races  of  a  lighter 
tint :  the  variety  of  physical  characteristics  in  Africa, 
among  races  which  we  in  our  ignorance  lump  together 
as  one,  is  not  inconsiderable. 

Before  leaving  the  eastern  continent,  we  must  re- 
turn to  Europe  for  a  word  or  two  upon  one  language 
which  has  as  yet  found  no  place  for  notice — the  Basque, 
now  spoken,  in  four  principal  dialects  and  a  number  of 
minor  varieties,  in  a  very  limited  mountain-district  at 
the  angle  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  astride  the  frontier,  but 
chiefly  on  the  Spanish  side.  It  is  believed  to  be  the 
modern  representative  of  the  ancient  Iberian,  and  to 
have  belonged  to  the  older  population  of  the  penin- 
sula, before  the  irruption  of  the  Indo-European  Celts. 
Traces  of  local  nomenclature  show  it  to  have  occupied 
also  at  least  the  southern  part  of  France.  The  Basque 
may  then  be  the  sole  surviving  relic  and  witness  of  an 
aboriginal  western  European  population,  dispossessed 
by  the  intrusive  Indo-European  tribes.  It  stands  en- 
tirely alone,  no  kindred  having  yet  been  found  for  it  in 
any  part  of  the  world.  It  is  of  an  exaggeratedly  ag- 
glutinative type,  incorporating  into  its  verb  a  variety  of 


AMERICAN  FAMILY.  259 

relations  which  are  almost  everywhere  else  expressed  by 
independent  words. 

The  Basque  forms  a  suitable  stepping-stone  from 
which  to  enter  the  peculiar  linguistic  domain  of  the 
New  World,  since  there  is  no  other  dialect  of  the  Old 
World  which  so  much  resembles  in  structure  the  Ameri- 
can languages.  Not  that  the  latter  are  all  of  accordant 
form.  Although  it  is  usual  among  philologists  to  ac- 
count them  as  making  together  but  a  single  great  fami- 
ly, this  is  in  no  small  part  a  classification  of  ignorance, 
and  should  be  held  only  provisionally,  ready  to  be 
changed,  if  necessary,  when  additional  knowledge  te 
won.  As  regards  the  material  of  expression,  it  is  fully 
confessed  that  there  is  irreconcilable  diversity  among 
them.  There  are  a  very  considerable  number  of  groups, 
between  whose  significant  signs  exist  no  more  appar- 
ent correspondences  than  between  those  of  English, 
Hungarian,  and  Malay:  none,  namely,  which  may  not 
be  merely  fortuitous.  So,  for  example,  between  the 
neighboring  tongues  of  the  Algonkin,  Iroquois,  and 
Dakota  groups,  the  speakers  of  which  we  have  every 
reason  to  regard  as  ultimately  related,  on  the  ground  of 
common  physical  characteristics,  gifts,  and  institutions. 
Indeed,  there  is  even  linguistic  evidence  to  the  same 
effect.  The  case  seems  to  be  clearly  one  where  the 
style  of  structure  of  a  language  is  more  permanent  than 
the  material,  constituting  of  itself  a  satisfactory  proof 
of  relationship.  That  is  to  say,  while  the  material  ele- 
ments of  these  tongues  have  been  highly  variable  since 
their  separation  from  one  another,  till  identities  in  this 
department  are  no  longer  traceable — a  feature  in  their 
history  which  we  shall  understand  and  judge  more  truly 
when  the  special  laws  of  their  growth  and  change  shall 
be  much  better  comprehended — there  still  remains,  un- 


260  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

altered  in  its  main  features,  their  common  mode  of 
managing  and  combining  the  linguistic  material,  of 
apprehending  the  relations  which  are  to  be  expressed 
in  language,  and  the  way  in  which  they  shall  be  ex- 
pressed. 

And  this  common  mode  of  structure,  which,  in  its 
various  aspects  and  degrees,  is  at  least  generally  char- 
acteristic of  American  language,  is  called  the  polysyn- 
thetic  or  incorporating.  Its  marked  tendency  is  toward 
the  absorbing  of  the  other  parts  of  the  sentence  into 
the  verb.  Not  the  subject  alone,  as  in  Indo-European, 
enters  into  combination  with  the  root  for  predicative 
expression,  but  the  objects  also,  of  every  kind  of  rela- 
tion, and  the  signs  of  time  and  place  and  manner  and 
degree,  and  a  host  of  modifiers  of  the  verbal  action, 
for  purposes  unknown  to  any  grammatical  system  with 
which  we  are  ordinarily  familiar.  It  has  been  deliber- 
ately calculated,  by  one  long  versed  in  the  chief  Algon- 
kin  dialects  (Rev.  T.  Hurl  but),  that  17,000,000  verbal 
forms  may  be  made  from  an  Algonkin  root;  and  even 
if  our  credence  were  to  extend  to  only  the  thousandth 
part  of  this,  enough  would  be  left  to  be  very  character- 
istic of  a  structural  style.  Everything  tends  to  verbal 
expression :  nouns,  and  adjectives,  and  even  adverbs 
and  prepositions,  are  regularly  conjugated;  nouns  are 
to  a  great  extent  verbal  forms :  e.  g.  '  home '  is  '  they 
live  there,'  or  '  where  they  live.'  Or,  to  express  it 
more  accurately,  our  grammatical  terminology  does  not 
at  all  suit  these  languages;  we  are  involved  in  contra- 
dictions and  absurdities  as  soon  as  we  attempt  to  apply 
it  to  them.  Of  course,  the  tendency  is  toward  the 
formation  of  words  of  immense  length,  and  of  an  in- 
tricate structure  that  gives  expression  to  a  host  of  things 
left  by  us  to  be  understood.    The  longest  word  in  Eliot's 


AMERICAN  FAMILY.  261 

Massachusetts  Bible,  however,  is  of  eleven  syllables: 
wub-appesituqussun-noowelit-unk-quoh,  which  renders 
"  kneeling  down  to  him  "'  in  our  version ;  but  it  really 
means  '  he  came  to  a  state  of  rest  upon  the  bended 
knees,  doing  reverence  unto  him'  (J.  H.  Trumbull). 
All  the  parts  of  such  combinations  must  be  recognized 
in  their  separateness ;  the  word  must  be  in  all  its  mem- 
bers significant  and  self-explaining.  And  the  separate 
elements  are  not,  as  is  often  represented,  a  reduction  to 
manageable  fragments  of  long  words  for  which  they 
stand;  they  are  rather  the  desired  significant  element 
among  those  which  compose  the  other  word.  Of 
course,  there  are  infinite  possibilities  of  expressiveness 
in  such  a  structure;  and  it  would  only  need  that  some 
native- American  Greek  race  should  arise,  to  fill  it  full 
of  thought  and  fancy,  and  put  it  to  the  uses  of  a  noble 
literature,  and  it  would  be  rightly  admired  as  rich  and 
flexible,  perhaps,  beyond  anything  else  that  the  world 
knew.  As  it  is,  it  makes  upon  us  the  impression  of  as 
much  exceeding  the  due  medium  of  formal  expressive- 
ness as  the  Chineses  comes  short  of  it;  it  is  cumbrous 
and  time-wasting  in  its  immense  polysyllabism.  Partly 
as  a  result  of  its  multiplicity  of  accessory  details,  it 
seems  to  us  deficient  in  simple  abstract  terms :  as  hav- 
ing, for  instance,  separate  roots  for  washing  all  kinds  of 
objects,  in  all  kinds  of  ways,  but  none  for  '  washing ' 
pure  and  simple.  There  is  something  of  our  prejudice 
in  this,  however;  so  a  Chinaman  or  Englishman  might 
criticise  a  Latin  adjective  unfavorably,  saying :  "  The 
Latin  is  deficient  in  the  power  of  abstraction,  of  con- 
sidering a  quality  apart  from  its  accidental  accessories : 
so  magnus,  for  example,  does  not  signify  simply  ta, 
'  great,'  but  a  quality  of  great  of  a  first  degree,  and  as 
belonging  to  only  one  object,  and  to  one  that  is   (for 


262  FAMILIES  OF   LANGUAGE. 

some  unassignable  reason)  regarded  as  masculine  and 
can  only  be  the  subject  of  a  verb;  magnas  indicates  in 
like  manner  an  objective  and  feminine  and  plural  great- 
ness; but  for  the  bare  idea  of  ta,  'great,'  the  Latin  has 
no  expression." 

There  are  other  characteristics  of  American  speech, 
of  universal  or  general  prevalence,  like  the  distinction 
of  animate  and  inanimate  gender  (which  would  seem  to 
be  quite  as  significant,  and  as  capable  of  being  applied 
to  higher  formative  uses,  as  is  our  own  sexual  gender), 
the  possession  of  the  inclusive  and  exclusive  first  per- 
sons plural,  the  classificatory  system  of  designation  of 
relationships,  and  so  on;  but  they  are  of  only  minor 
importance,  as  compared  with  the  general  style  of 
structure. 

The  polysynthetic  structure  does  not  belong  in  the 
same  degree  to  all  the  American  languages;  on  the 
contrary,  it  seems  to  be  altogether  effaced  or  originally 
wanting  in  some.  So,  for  example,  a  monosyllabic  or 
uninflective  character  has  been  claimed  for  the  Otomi 
in  Mexico,  and  for  one  or  two  dialects  in  South  Ameri- 
ca; and  all  sign  of  polysynthetism  has  been  denied  (C. 
F.  Hartt)  to  the  great  Tupi-Guarani  stock,  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  South  American  continent.  It  re- 
mains yet  to  be  determined  how  far  such  exceptions  are 
real,  and  how  far  apparent  only.  But  the  common 
character  is  recognizable  in  so  large  a  part  of  American 
tongues,  from  the  Eskimo  of  the  extreme  north  to  the 
Antarctic  Ocean,  that  the  linguist  regards  them,  with 
considerable  confidence,  as  members  of  a  family,  de- 
scendants of  one  original  speech,  of  unknown  age,  lo- 
cality, and  derivation.  Attempts  have  been  made  to 
connect  them  with  some  dialect  or  family  of  the  Old 
World,  but  with  obviously  unavoidable  ill-success.     If, 


AMERICAN   FAMILY.  263 

for  example,  there  is  not  left  in  Algonkin,  Iroquois,  and 
Dakota  enough  of  the  material  once  common  to  the 
ancestors  of  all  to  furnish  ground  for  trustworthy 
identifications,  much  less  are  they  to  be  identified  with 
tongues  from  which  they  have  been  so  much  longer 
separated  that  even  their  structure  is  of  a  different  char- 
acter. It  is  not  proper,  perhaps,  to  limit  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  future;  but  there  appears  to  be  no  tolerable 
prospect  that,  even  supposing  the  American  languages 
derived  from  the  Old  World,  they  can  ever  be  proved 
so,  or  traced  to  their  parentage. 

An  exhaustive  classification  of  the  American  lan- 
gauges  is  at  present  impossible;  and  to  give  what  can 
already  be  given  would  demand  much  more  space  than 
can  be  afforded  here.  There  are  many  great  groups, 
and  a  host  of  lesser  knots  of  idioms,  or  of  dialects 
isolated  or  unclassified.  The  Eskimos  line  the  whole 
northern  coast,  and  the  northeastern  down  to  Newfound- 
land. The  Athabaskan  or  Tinne  occupies  a  great  re- 
gion in  the  far  northwest  (the  Apache  and  Navajo  in 
the  south  also  belong  to  it),  and  is  flanked  on  the  west 
by  the  Selish  and  other  smaller  groups.  The  Algonkin 
had  in  possession  the  northeastern  and  middle  United 
States,  and  stretched  westward  to  the  Eocky  Moun- 
tains; within  its  territory  was  included  that  of  the 
Iroquois.  The  Dakota  (Sioux)  is  the  largest  of  the 
families  occupying  the  great  prairies  and  plains  of  the 
far  "West,  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Beyond  them  is 
found  the  extensive  Shoshone  family,  and,  north  of  it, 
the  Sahaptin  and  Selish  families.  Still  further,  on  the 
Pacific  coast,  occurs  a  perplexing  variety  of  dialects. 
The  Muskokee  and  Cherokee  group  filled  the  States  of 
the  southeast.  In  Colorado  and  Utah  commence  the 
towns  of  the  settled  and  comparatively  civilized  "  pueblo 


264  FAMILIES  OF  LANGUAGE. 

Indians/'  rising  to  the  more  advanced  culture  of  the 
Mexican  peoples,  attaining  its  height  in  the  Mayas  of 
Central  America,  and  continued  in  the  empire  of  the 
Incas  of  Peru.  The  Quichua  of  the  latter,  with  the 
related  Aymara,  are  still  the  native  dialects  of  a  consid- 
erable part  of  South  America;  with  the  Tupi-Guarani, 
already  referred  to,  on  the  east,  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Amazons  and  its  tributaries. 

The  condition  of  American  languages  is  thus  an 
epitome  of  that  of  the  language  of  the  world  in  gen- 
eral. Great  and  wide-spread  families,  limited  groups, 
isolated  and  perishing  dialects,  touch  and  jostle  one 
another.  Such,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  human  affairs, 
must  be  the  history  of  races  and  of  their  dialects. 
What  families,  once  covering  great  tracts  of  the  earth's 
surface,  have  been  wiped  out  without  a  trace,  what 
others  have  been  reduced  to  mere  fragments,  what  have 
started  from  a  narrow  beginning,  and,  by  prosperous 
growth  and  by  working  in  parts  of  other  races,  have 
risen  to  prominence — on  such  points  as  these  we  must 
remain  forever  only  imperfectly  informed.  We  need 
to  guard  against  supposing  that,  when  we  have  succeed- 
ed in  classifying  all  existing  languages  and  determining 
their  relations,  we  shall  have  gained  a  complete  outline 
of  the  history  of  human  language :  the  darkness  of  the 
past  may  hide  a  great  deal  of  which  we  do  not  even 
catch  a  glimpse. 

Some  of  the  questions  bearing  on  this  point  will 
engage  our  attention  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

LANGUAGE    AND   ETHNOLOGY. 

Limitations  to  the  scope  of  linguistic  science :  materials  of  speech 
not  analyzable  to  the  end ;  annihilation,  transmutation,  new 
creation,  possible  in  it ;  cumulative  character  of  -evidences  of 
relationship.  Impossibility  that  language  can  prove  either 
unity  or  variety  of  the  human  race.  Relation  of  language  to 
race,  as  transmitted  institution  only;  exchange  of  language 
accompanying  mixture  of  blood.  Insolubility  of  the  ethno- 
logical problem.  Contributions  to  it  of  archaeology  and 
linguistics:  merits  of  the  latter;  importance  of  the  testimony 
of  language  to  race.  Reconciliation  of  the  various  lines  of 
ethnological  evidence.  Inferior  value  of  other  classifications 
of  language  as  compared  with  the  genetic. 

The  classification  of  languages  given  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter  has  confessedly  represented  only  the  pres- 
ent state  of  knowledge,  and  is  liable  to  amendment  here- 
after, as  further  investigation  shall  bring  more  light. 
But  its  main  features  will  probably  stand  unaltered. 
The  leading  independent  families  will  continue  separate 
to  the  end.  One  and  another  of  those  now  recognized, 
it  is  true,  may  hereafter  assume  a  dependent  place,  as 
branches  of  a  wider  and  more  comprehensive  family, 
but  there  is  no  reasonable  ground  for  anticipating  that 
such  will  ever  be  the  case  with  them  all.  To  maintain 
this  is  not  so  much  to  limit  the  future  of  linguistic  sci- 
ence, as,  rather,  to  recognize  the  limits  which  in  the 
18  265 


J 


266  LANGUAGE  AND  ETHNOLOGY. 

nature  of  things  are  set  to  its  progress;  as  a  brief  and 
simple  exposition  will  show. 

We  must  not  fail  to  appreciate  the  essential  differ- 
ence between  the  material  of  the  physical  sciences  and 
that  of  our  subject;  that  we  have  to  deal  with  the 
usages  of  men,  in  all  of  which  intervenes  that  indefinite 
element,  the  human  will  as  determined  by  circumstance, 
by  habit,  by  individual  character;  and  that  these  do  not 
admit  an  analysis  penetrating  to  the  ultimate  elements. 
There  is  no  natural  substance  which  the  chemist  may 
not  aspire  to  analyze;  into  whatever  new  forms  and 
combinations  an  element  may  enter,  he  has  tests  which 
will  detect  its  presence;  neither  new  creation  nor  an- 
nihilation is  possible;  all  change  is  but  recombination 
of  material  always  existing;  there  is  no  transmutation 
of  one  element  into  another.  But  it  is  altogether  dif- 
ferent with  speech.  A  word,  a  whole  family  of  words, 
perishes  by  simple  disuse,  and  is  as  if  it  had  never  been, 
unless  civilization  is  there  to  make  a  record  of  its  de- 
parted worth.  A  whole  language,  or  family  of  lan- 
guages, is  annihilated  by  the  destruction  of  the  commu- 
nity that  spoke  it,  or  by  the  adoption  of  another  lan- 
guage by  that  community.  When  the  Gauls  learned 
Latin,  there  was  nothing  saved  which,  without  the  aid 
of  external  evidences,  should  show  what  their  primitive 
speech  had  been;  when  the  Etruscans  were  Latinized, 
but  for  the  scattering  words  which  they  had  written 
down,  their  speech  passed  out  of  all  reach  of  knowl- 
edge: and  many  a  dialect  has  doubtless  gone  out  in  a 
like  way,  leaving  no  such  telltale  records.  The  acutal 
creation  of  the  new  in  speech  is,  as  we  have  seen,  very 
rare;  yet  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  prevent  it  save 
men's  preferences.  And  it  amounts,  for  all  purposes  of 
analysis,  to  a  new  creation,  when  a  derivative  word  gets 


ANNIHILATION  AND  TRANSMUTATION.        207 

so  far  from  its  primitive,  in  form  and  meaning,  that  the 
tie  between  them  is  traceable  only  by  external,  historical 
evidence:  and  of  such  cases  all  language  is  full.  A 
formative  element  is  annihilated  when  it  is  -worn  off 
from  every  form  which  it  once  made;,  such  a  one  is 
created  when  it  is  fully  established  ki  its  derived  and 
subordinate  use :  no  process  of  analysis  that  we  have  or 
of  which  we  can  conceive  would  ever  find  the  lost  masi 
of  our  first  persons  plural,  or  detect  the  presence  of  did 
in  loved:  there  is  wanted  the  historical  support,  for 
lack  of  which  a  host  of  other  like  cases  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for. 

The  changes  of  linguistic  usage  are  all  the  time  sep- 
arating in  appearance  what  really  belongs  together: 
bishop  and  eveque  are  historically  one  word;  so  are  eye 
and  auge;  so  are  I  and  je  and  ile  and  iycov  and  ahamj 
though  not  one  of  them  has  an  audible  element  which 
is  found  in  any  other.  And  then,  the  same  changes 
are  bringing  together  what  really  belongs  apart:  the 
Latin  locus  and  the  Sanskrit  lohas,  '  place,  room,'  have 
really  nothing  to  do  with  one  another,  though  so  nearly 
identical  and  in  closely-related  languages;  likewise 
Greek  oXos  (holos)  and  English  whole;  and  so  on.  We 
may  take  the  English  language  (as  too  many  do),  and 
compare  it  with  every  unrelated  dialect  in  existence, 
and  find  a  liberal  list  of  apparent  correspondences; 
which  then  a  little  study  of  the  English  words  will 
prove  unreal  and  fallacious.  This  is,  above  all  others, 
the  decisive  fact  which  stands  in  the  way  of  a  com- 
parison that  shall  penetrate  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter. 
If  there  were  no  resemblances  in  either  the  material  or 
the  structure  of  language  save  such  as  have  a  historical 
basis,  we  might  let  them  be  swept  away  as  much  as 
they  would;  what  was  left,  if  anything  were  left,  would 


268       LANGUAGE  AND  ETHNOLOGY. 

suffice  to  prove  relationship.  As  it  is,  the  process  of 
proof  is  not  direct  and  absolute,  but  cumulative;  the 
result  comes  from  a  sufficient  number  of  particulars  of 
which  each,  taken  by  itself,  would  prove  nothing.  We 
have  had  expressly  to  allow  that  two  dialects  may  di- 
verge from  a  common  original  so  far  that  all  sign  of 
their  kinship  shall  be  lost;  there  may  be  a  plenty  of 
the  altered  products  of  common  material  in  them  both; 
but  if  it  have  gotten  into  the  condition  of  bishop  and 
eveque,  it  is  of  no  use  to  the  linguist.  Accidental  cor- 
respondences are  capable  of  rising  to  a  certain  percent- 
age; if  all  that  appear  stand  at  or  near  this  figure,  the 
case  is  one  hopeless  of  settlement. 

This  cumulative  character  of  the  signs  of  relation- 
ship, the  uncertain  value  of  any  single  item,  and  the 
need  of  historical  evidence  to  support  their  interpreta- 
tion, set  limits  to  the  reach  and  competence  of  linguistic 
investigation.  Thus  far,  the  recognized  families  are 
such  as  have  had  a  common  development.  There  are 
even  some  of  which  the  sole  uniting  tie  is  a  common 
style  of  structure.  If  we  cannot  prove  the  American 
languages  related  except  by  the  characteristic  of  poly- 
synthetism,  nor  the  southeastern  Asiatic  except  by  that 
of  monosyllabism,  it  is  obviously  impossible  to  prove 
American  and  Chinese  related  by  the  material  corre- 
spondences of  their  roots.  In  the  present  stage  of  lin- 
guistic science,  root-comparisons  are  surrounded  with 
too  many  uncertainties  and  dangers  to  have  any  value. 
All  that  have  been  made  thus  far  are  worthless;  wheth- 
er the  future  will  show  anything  better,  we  may  leave 
for  the  future  to  determine.  There  is  no  harm  in  any 
one's  rating  even  too  highly  the  possibilities  of  a  pro- 
gressive science  like  linguistics,  provided  he  do  not  let 
his  sanguineness  warp  his  judgment  as  to  what  shall 


UNITY  OR  VARIETY  OP  HUMAN  ORIGINS.     269 

have  been  at  any  given  time  already  accomplished,  and 
lead  him  to  take  plausible  fancies  for  tried  and  ap- 
proved facts.  He  who  realizes  the  immense  difficulty 
of  arriving  at  the  ultimate  roots  even  of  a  family  like 
the  Indo-European,  despite  the  exceptional  antiquity 
and  conservation  of  its  oldest  dialects,  will  be  likely  to 
be  saved  from  hanging  his  expectations  on  root-com- 
parisons. 

It  is,  then,  impossible  that  linguistic  science  should 
ever  be  able  to  prove,  by  the  evidence  of  community 
of  the  first  germs  of  expression,  that  the  human  race 
in  the  beginning  formed  one  society  together.  Even  if 
the  number  of  families  be  lessened  by  future  research, 
it  will  never  be  reduced  to  one. 

But  it  is  even  far  more  demonstrable  that  linguistic 
science  can  never  prove  the  variety  of  human  races  and 
origins.  As  we  have  repeatedly  seen,  there  are  no  lim- 
its to  the  diversity  which  may  arise  by  discordant 
growth  between  languages  originally  one.  Given  any 
angle  of  divergence,  and  the  law  of  increasing  diver- 
gence (p.  165),  and  the  distance  of  the  ends  of  two  lines 
may  be  made,  by  their  production  far  enough,  to  exceed 
any  assignable  quantity;  and  in  linguistics,  as  has  been 
just  pointed  out,  there  comes,  far  short  of  infinite  pro- 
longation, a  distance  across  which  the  historical  scholar, 
with  his  limited  vision,  cannot  see:  and  that  is,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  infinity.  The  understanding  now 
won  of  the  methods  of  growth  and  change  in  speech 
has  taken  away  all  possibility  of  a  dogmatic  assertion 
on  the  part  of  the  linguistic  scholar  that  language  has 
a  various  origin.  If  every  tongue  had  from  the  begin- 
ning its  own  structure  and  material  complete,  then  lan- 
guage-history would  run  back  only  in  parallel  lines, 
with  no  indication  of  convergence.     But  the  difference 


4 


270       LANGUAGE  AND  ETHNOLOGY. 

of  English  and  German  and  Danish  comes  by  divergent 
growth  from  a  common  centre;  that  of  English  and 
Russian  and  Armenian  and  Persian  is  by  similar  diver- 
gence from  a  more  distant  centre :  and  we  cannot  say 
that  English  and  Turkish  and  Circassian  and  Japanese 
may  not  owe  their  difference  to  the  same  cause.  The 
lines  of  development  of  all  families  of  language  do  point 
back  to  one  original  common  condition  of  formless 
roots;  and  precisely  what  these  roots  were,  in  shape 
and  meaning,  we  cannot  in  most  families  even  begin  to 
trace  out;  we  cannot,  then,  deny  that  they  may  have 
been  the  same  for  all.  We  may  talk  of  probabilities  as 
much  as  we  please ;  but  of  impossibil  ity  there  is  actually 
nothing  in  the  assumption  of  identity  of  origins. 

This,  again,  implies  that  linguistic  science  cannot 
assume  to  prove  the  diversity  of  human  races.  But  it 
deserves  to  be  pointed  out  that  there  is  an  additional 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  same  proof.  If  we  must 
regard  it  as  at  least  possible  (whether  we  admit  it  as  an 
established  conclusion  or  not)  that  men  made  the  begin- 
nings of  their  own  speech,  as  well  as  created  all  its 
after-development,  then  we  shall  be  obliged  also  to  al- 
low that  a  period  of  some  length  may  have  elapsed 
before  any  so  settled  store  of  expression  had  been  won 
that  it  should  show  itself  in  the  later  forms  of  lan- 
guage; and  during  this  period  the  race,  though  one, 
might  have  spread  and  separated,  so  that  the  abiding 
germs  of  the  speech  of  each  part  should  be  independent. 
As  a  general  conclusion,  the  incompetence  of  linguistic 
science  to  pass  any  decisive  judgment  as  to  the  unity 
or  diversity  of  the  human  race,  or  even  as  to  that  of 
human  speech,  appears  to  be  completely  and  irrevoca- 
bly demonstrated. 

Another  highly  important  anthropological  question, 


LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  271 

connected  with  and  suggested  by  our  classification  of 
languages,  concerns  its  relation  to  the  ethnologist's  clas- 
sification of  races.  And  here  we  have  to  make  at  the  ^ 
outset  the  unreserved  confession  that  the  two  do  not  by 
any  means  correspond  and  agree:  wholly  discordant 
languages  are  spoken  by  communities  whom  the  ethnol- 
ogist would  not  separate  in  race  from  one  another ;  and 
related  languages  are  spoken  by  men  of  apparently  dif- 
ferent race.  And  the  view  we  have  taken  of  language 
is  entirely  consistent  with  this.  We  have  seen  that 
there  is  no  necessary  tie  between  race  and  language;  f 
that  every  man  speaks  the  language  he  has  learned,  be- 
ing born  into  the  possession  of  no  one  rather  than  an- 
other ;  and  that,  as  any  individual  may  learn  a  language 
different  from  that  of  his  parents  or  of  his  remoter 
ancestors,  so  a  community  (which  is  only  an  aggregate 
of  individuals)  may  do  the  same  thing,  not  retaining 
the  slightest  trace  of  its  ancestral  speech.  The  world, 
past  and  present,  is  full  of  examples  of  this,  of  every 
class  and  kind,  and  sundry  of  them  have  been  already 
noticed  by  us  in  passing — as  the  combination  of  hetero- 
geneous elements,  now  using  only  English  as  their 
native  tongue,  found  in  the  American  community;  the 
Celts  of  Gaul,  the  Normans  of  France,  the  Celts  of  Ire- 
land and  Cornwall,  the  Etruscans  of  Italy,  and  all  the 
other  communities  whose  idioms  have  been  crowded 
out  and  replaced  by  the  Latin,  the  English,  the  Arabic. 
There  are  conquering  languages  which  are  always  en- 
croaching upon  the  territory  of  their  neighbors,  as  there 
are  others  which  are  always  losing  ground. 

The  testimony  of  language  to  race  is  thus  not  that 
of  a  physical  characteristic,  nor  of  anything  founded  on 
and  representing  such;  but  only  that  of  a  transmitted 
institution,  which,  under  sufficient  inducement,  is  capa- 


272       LANGUAGE  AND  ETHNOLOGY. 

ble  of  being  abandoned  by  its  proper  inheritors,  or  as- 
sumed by  men  of  strange  blood.  And  the  inducement 
lies  in  external  circumstances,  not  in  the  nature  of  the 
language  abandoned  or  assumed.  Political  control, 
social  superiority,  superiority  of  culture — these  are  the 
leading  causes  which  bring  about  change  of  speech. 
Or  rather,  these  are  the  added  circumstances  which,  in 
the  case  of  a  mixture  of  communities,  decide  which 
element  of  population  shall  give,  chiefly  or  wholly,  its 
tongue  to  the  resulting  community.  If  there  were  no 
such  thing  as  mixture  of  blood,  then  there  would  at 
least  be  next  to  nothing  of  the  shifting  of  speech.  Bor- 
rowing there  would  still  be,  but  not  substitution. 

It  is  mixture  of  communities  which  creates  the 
great  intricacy  of  the  ethnological  problem,  on  its  lin- 
guistic side  as  on  its  physical ;  which  renders  it,  in  fact, 
insoluble  except  approximately;  and  which,  so  far  as 
the  history  of  races  is  concerned,  makes  the  linguist  as 
glad  of  the  help  of  the  physicist  as  vice  versa.  The 
ethnologist  has  to  confess  the  same  possibility  which 
was  admitted  on  the  part  of  the  linguists  at  the  end  of 
the  preceding  chapter.  During  the  long  past,  there 
have  been  indefinite  encroachments,  superpositions, 
mixtures,  displacements,  destructions,  among  human 
races  (or  derived  branches  of  a  unitary  race),  as  among 
human  languages  (or  derived  branches  of  the  unitary 
human  language).  In  neither  department  is  it  likely 
that  the  history  will  ever  be  unraveled  with  anything 
approaching  to  completeness:  especially,  since  the  giv.it 
extension  which  the  generally-admitted  period  of  man's 
existence  on  the  earth  has  lately  received.  Opinions 
are  by  no  means  as  yet  agreed  upon  this  point;  but 
even  those  who  still  refuse  to  accept  the  new  doctrine 
are  preparing  themselves  to  believe  by-and-by,  if  the 


ARCHAEOLOGY  AND  LINGUISTICS.  273 

evidence  to  that  effect  shall  turn  out  irresistible,  that  the 
life  of  man  has  lasted  for  scores,  if  not  for  hundreds, 
of  thousands  of  years.  This  is  a  doctrine  of  the  highest 
interest  to  the  ethnologist;  but  it  balks  his  hopes  of 
being  able  to  trace  more  than  a  little  way  into  the  thick 
darkness  of  early  time  the  lines  of  race-history ;  it  gives 
the  precedence  to  anthropology  as  the  science  of  man's 
development  as  a  whole  race,  or  a  congeries  of  undis- 
tinguishable  races,  as  yet  not  sufficiently  differentiated 
in  their  capacities  and  products  to  be  held  apart  from 
one  another ;  and  to  zoology  as  alone  capable  of  answer- 
ing the  question  as  to  his  origin. 

The  records  of  the  earliest  and  rudest  period  of 
man's  activity  are  of  two  kinds :  the  products  of  their 
art  and  industry,  wrought  by  their  hands;  and  the 
primitive  materials  and  forms  of  their  speech,  wrought 
for  the  uses  of  their  minds;  the  latter  the  instrument 
of  sociality,  as  the  former  of  individual  subsistence  and 
defense;  both  turning,  each  in  its  own  way  and  meas- 
ure, to  the  education  and  equipment  of  the  higher 
capacities  of  the  race,  and  its  advance  toward  self-con- 
trol, the  control  of  Nature,  and  civilization.  Both  kinds 
of  record  are  eagerly  sought  and  carefully  scanned  by 
historical  students,  as  evidences  of  a  remoter  past  than 
the  pen  of  history  or  the  voice  of  legend  reports.  But, 
of  the  two,  the  linguistic  remains  are  infinitely  the  more 
important  and  instructive;  and  it  is  almost  they  alone 
which  can  serve  the  purpose  of  the  ethnologist,  since 
the  others  are  indicative  rather  of  a  grade  of  develop- 
ment than  of  the  special  endowments  or  habits  of  a 
race.  The  linguistic  evidence  has  over  even  the  physi- 
cal the  advantage  that  it  is  far  more  abundant  and 
varied,  and  therefore  manageable.  The  differences  in 
the  kingdom  of  language  are  not  like  those  which  pre- 


274  LANGUAGE  AND  ETHNOLOGY. 

vail  within  the  limits  of  a  single  species  of  animals; 
they  are  equal,  rather,  in  range  to  those  which  belong 
to  the  whole  animal  kingdom.  It  is,  to  the  other,  like 
a  microscopic  image  thrown  up  by  optical  means  upon 
a  wall,  where  its  parts  may  be  examined  and  measured 
and  described  and  compared  by  even  the  unskilled  stu- 
dent. Breadth  of  knowledge  and  competent  judgment 
are  to  be  won  in  physical  ethnology  only  by  rare 
opportunities,  peculiar  gifts,  and  prolonged  training. 
Though  languages  are  traditional  institutions,  they  are 
of  a  special  kind,  capable  of  application  to  ethnological 
purposes  far  beyond  any  other,  as  being  so  various  and 
so  distinct  as  they  are,  capable  of  being  looked  at  ob- 
jectively, and  handled  and  compared  with  accuracy. 
They  are  persistent,  also,  at  least  to  a  degree  far  be- 
yond other  institutions. 

To  admit  that  a  language  can  be  exchanged,  there- 
fore, is  by  no  means  to  deny  its  value  as  a  record  of 
human  history,  even  of  race-history;  it  is  only  to  put 
that  value  upon  its  proper  basis,  and  confess  those  limi- 
tations which  can  in  no  manner  be  avoided,  and  of  which 
a  due  consideration  is  needful  to  the  proper  use  of  lin- 
guistic evidence.  It  still  remains  true  that,  upon  the 
whole,  language  is  determined  by  race,  since  each  human 
being  usually  learns  to  speak  from  his  parents  and  others 
of  the  same  blood.  And  the  marked  exceptions  to  this 
rule  take  place  in  the  full  light  of  historical  record. 
Civilization  facilitates  mixture,  as  it  does  communica- 
tion. It  is  not  the  wild  and  obscure  races  which  are,  or 
have  ever  been,  mixing  blood  and  mixing  or  shifting 
speech  upon  a  grand  scale;  it  is  the  cultivated  ones.  If 
one  barbarous  tribe  overcomes  another,  unless  the  con- 
querors absorb  the  conquered  into  their  own  commu- 
nity, there  is  not  usually  a  change  of  speech :  but  nations 


VALUE  OP  LINGUISTIC  EVIDENCE.  275 

like  the  Romans  and  Arabs,  who  come  with  the  force  of 
an  organized  polity  and  a  literature,  extend  their  speech 
widely  over  strange  peoples.  Where  the  information 
derivable  from  language,  therefore,  is  most  needed,  there 
it  comes  with  the  greatest  presumption  of  accuracy. 

Hence,  when  the  ethnological  relations  of  a  commu- 
nity or  of  a  group  of  communities  are  to  be  settled,  the 
first  question  is  as  to  the  affinities  of  its  speech.  This 
does  not  necessarily  decide  the  case;  the  linguistic  evi- 
dence may  be  overborne  by  some  other;  but  nothing 
can  be  determined  without  it;  it  lays  the  basis  for  fur- 
ther discussion.  "We  need  only  to  quote  an  example  or 
two  in  illustration  of  this.  The  Basques  are  a  white, 
"  Caucasian  "  race ;  there  is  nothing  in  their  other  eth- 
nological characteristics  which  should  forbid  our  con- 
necting them  with  any  great  division  of  the  white  race; 
but  their  speech  at  once  cuts  them  off  from  every  other, 
and  we  accept  its  decision  as  authoritative.  Out  of  what 
mixtures  the  original  Iberians  may  have  grown,  we  can- 
not tell;  nor  can  we  ever  absolutely  know  that  the 
Basques  did  not  borrow  their  Euskarian  dialect,  as  the 
French  their  Romanic  dialect ;  there  are  indefinite  possi- 
bilities lying  behind;  but  the  language  tells  us  a  great 
deal,  and  probably  all  that  will  ever  be  within  our  reach. 
Again,  of  the  Etruscans  there  are  records  and  descrip- 
tions and  pictures,  and  products,  art  and  industrial ;  but 
to  settle  the  relationship  of  the  race  the  ethnologists 
with  one  consent  appeal  to  the  infinitesimal  remnants 
of  Etruscan  speech :  a  single  page  of  connected  Etrus- 
can text,  with  but  a  hint  of  its  meaning,  would  in  the 
briefest  time  settle  the  question  whether  the  race  is  to 
be  connected  with  any  other  on  earth,  or  whether,  like 
the  Basque,  it  is  an  isolated  fragment.  There  lies  be- 
fore us  a  vast  and  complicated  problem  in  the  Ameri- 


270  LANGUAGE  AND  ETHNOLOGY. 

can  races;  and  here,  again,  it  is  their  language  that  must 
do  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  work  in  solving  it. 
American  ethnology  depends  primarily  and  in  bulk  on 
the  classifications  and  connections  of  dialects;  till  that 
foundation  is  laid,  all  is  uncertain ;  although  there  are 
points  involved  which  may  not  yield  even  to  the  combi- 
nation of  all  attainable  evidence,  from  every  quarter. 

We  are  to  look  for  no  real  reconciliation  between 
the  results  won  by  the  two  great  branches  of  ethnologi- 
cal study  until  their  methods  are  more  fully  established 
than  at  present;  nor  is  it  worth  while  to  hurry  the  pro- 
cess— least  of  all,  to  attempt  prematurely  an  artificial 
and  superficial  scheme  of  combination.  All  that  will 
come  in  good  time,  if  we  only  have  patience.  Within 
its  own  domain,  each  is  supreme.  The  classifications 
and  relations  of  speech  are  what  they  are,  without  any 
reference  to  underlying  questions  of  race;  and  yet, 
those  questions  cannot  be  kept  down  and  ignored  by 
the  linguist:  his  study  is  too  thoroughly  a  historical 
one,  it  involves  too  much  of  the  element  of  race  in  the 
later  periods,  to  allow  of  our  leaving  that  element  out 
of  account  for  the  earlier.  As  one  of  the  leading 
branches  of  historical  investigation,  as  claiming  to  make 
its  contribution  to  the  elucidation  of  the  past,  it  must 
offer  its  results  to  be  criticised  by  every  other  concur- 
rent branch.  And  to  exaggerate  its  claims,  or  to  put 
them  upon  a  false  basis,  is  both  needless  and  harmful. 
If  any  one  is  not  content  with  the  degree  of  dignity  and 
authority  that  belongs  to  the  science  of  language  when 
kept  within  the  very  strictest  limits  which  a  sound  and 
impartial  criticism  is  impelled  to  draw,  there  are  other 
departments  in  which  his  aid  will  be  welcomed,  and  he 
had  better  turn  to  them. 

There  is  one  more  point  calling  for  brief  notice  in 


GENETIC  CLASSIFICATION.  277 

connection  with  our  classification  of  the  dialects  of  the 
world.  That  classification  aimed  at  being  a  strictly 
genetical  one,  each  family  embracing  those  tongues 
which,  by  the  sum  of  all  available  evidences,  were 
deemed  traceable  to  a  common  ancestor.  To  the  his- 
torical philologist,  still  deep  in  the  labor  of  determin- 
ing relations  and  tracing  out  the  course  of  structural 
development,  this  is  by  far  the  most  important  of  all; 
indeed,  the  value  of  any  other  at  present  is  so  small  as 
to  be  hardly  worthy  of  notice.  The  wider  distinction 
of  languages  as  isolating,  agglutinative,  and  inflective, 
which  has  a  degree  of  currency  and  familiarity,  offers  a 
convenient,  but  far  from  exact  or  absolute,  test  by  which 
the  character  of  linguistic  structure  may  be  tried;  the 
three  degrees  lie  in  a  certain  line  of  progress,  but,  as  in 
all  such  cases,  pass  into  one  another.  To  lay  any  stress 
upon  this  as  a  basis  of  classification  is  like  making  the 
character  of  the  hair  or  the  color  of  the  skin  a  basis  of 
classification  in  physical  ethnology,  or  the  number  of  sta- 
mens or  the  combination  of  leaves  in  botany :  it  ignores 
and  overrides  other  distinctions  of  an  equal  or  of  greater 
importance.  If  the  naturalist  had  the  actual  certainty 
which  the  linguist  has  of  the  common  descent  of  related 
species,  he  would  care  little  for  any  other  classification, 
but  would  spend  his  strength  upon  the  elaboration  and 
perfection  of  this  one.  The  linguist  has  enough  of  this 
still  left  to  do;  and  till  it  is  all  accomplished,  at  any 
rate,  any  other  is  of  small  account  to  him. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

NATURE   AND   ORIGIN    OF   LANGUAGE. 

Language  an  acquisition,  a  part  of  culture.  Its  universality 
among  men ;  limitation  to  man ;  difference  between  human 
and  other  means  of  expression.  Communication  the  direct 
motive  to  the  production  of  speech ;  this  the  conscious  and 
determining  element  in  all  language-history.  Natural  cries 
as  basis  of  the  development ;  question  as  to  their  nature  and 
range ;  postulation  of  instinctive  articulate  utterances  un- 
called for.  Use  of  the  voice  as  principal  means  of  expression. 
Imitative  element  in  the  beginnings  of  speech  ;  range  and 
limits  of  onomatopoeic  expression.  The  doctrine  of  roots. 
Sufficiency  of  this  view  of  the  origin  of  language ;  the  opposing 
miraculous  theory.  Capacity  involved  in  language-making; 
difference  in  this  respect  between  men  and  lower  animals. 
Relation  of  language  to  development  of  man ;  rate  and  manner 
of  its  growth. 

Our  examination  of  the  history  of  language,  of  its 
mode  of  transmission,  preservation,  and  alteration,  has 
shown  us  clearly  enough  what  we  are  to  hold  respecting 
its  nature.  It  is  not  a  faculty,  a  capacity ;  it  is  not  an  im- 
mediate exertion  of  the  thinking  power;  it  is  a  mediate 
product  and  an  instrumentality.  To  many,  superficial 
or  prejudiced,  inquirers  this  seems  an  unsatisfactory, 
even  a  low,  view;  but  it  is  because  they  confound  to- 
gether two  very  different  senses  of  the  word  language. 
Man  possesses,  as  one  of  his  most  marked  and  distinctive 
characteristics,  a  faculty  or  capacity  of  speech — or,  more 
378 


LANGUAGE  AS  CAPACITY  AXD  AS  PEODU 

i 

accurately,  various  faculties  and  capacities  which  )cad 

inevitably  to  the  production  of  speech:  hut  the-"facul- 
ties  are  one  thing,  and  their  elaborated  products  are 
another  and  very  different  one.  So  man  has  a  capacity 
for  art,  for  the  invention  of  instruments,  for  finding  out 
and  applying  the  resources  of  mathematics,  for  many 
other  great  and  noble  things;  but  no  man  is  born  an 
artist,  an  engineer,  or  a  calculist,  any  more  than  he  is 
born  a  speaker.  In  regard  to  these  various  exercises  of 
our  activities  our  condition  is  the  same.  In  all  alike,  the 
race  has  been  undergoing  almost  from  the  beginning  a 
training  of  its  capacities,  step  by  step,  each  step  being 
embodied  in  a  product.  The  growth  of  art  implies  a 
period  of  rude  shapings,  and  a  rise  to  higher  and  higher 
production  by  improving  on  former  models  and  pro- 
cesses. Mechanics  still  more  clearly  has  the  same  his- 
tory ;  it  was  by  the  use  of  ruder  instruments,  by  the  dex- 
terity acquired  in  that  use  and  the  consequent  sugges- 
tion of  improvements,  that  men  came  finally  to  locomo- 
tives and  power-looms.  Mathematics  began  with  the 
apprehension  that  one  and  one  are  two,  and  its  develop- 
ment has  been  like  that  of  the  others.  And  every  new 
individual  of  the  race  has  to  go  through  the  same  series 
of  steps,  from  the  same  humble  beginnings.  Only,  he 
takes  them  at  lightning-speed,  as  compared  with  their 
first  elaboration;  because  he  is  led  onward  by  others 
over  a  beaten  and  smoothed  track.  The  half-grown  boy 
now  is  often  a  more  advanced  mathematician  or  mech- 
anician than  the  wisest  of  the  Greeks:  not  because  his 
gifts  are  superior  to  theirs,  but  because  he  has  only  to 
receive  and  assimilate  what  they  and  their  successors 
have  wrought  out  for  him.  Though  possessing  the 
endowments  of  a  Homer  or  a  Demosthenes,  no  man 
can  speak  any  language  until  he  has  learned  it,  as  truly 


280        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

learned  it  as  he  learns  the  multiplication-table,  or  the 
demonstrations  of  Euclid. 

Now  these  collected  products  of  the  exercise  of 
man's  developing  powers,  which  are  passed  on  from 
one  generation  to  another,  increasing  and  changing  as 
they  go,  we  call  institutions,  constituents  of  our  culture. 
Something  of  them  is  possessed  by  every  section  of 
humanity.  There  is  no  member  of  any  community, 
however  barbarous,  who  is  not  raised  vastly  above  what 
he  would  otherwise  be  by  learning  what  his  fellows 
have  to  teach  him,  acquiring  their  fragments  of  knowl- 
edge, however  scanty,  and  their  arts — including  the  art 
of  speech.  Doubtless  the  most  degraded  community 
has  more  to  teach  the  most  gifted  individual  than  he 
would  have  learned,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  by  the  use  of 
his  own  faculties  unaided ;  certainly  this  is  so  as  regards 
speech.  Every  one  acquires  that  which  the  accident  of 
birth  places  within  his  reach,  exercising  his  faculties 
upon  that  foundation,  expanded  and  at  the  same  time 
constrained  by  it,  making  to  it  his  individual  contribu- 
tion, if  he  have  one  to  make:  just  as  truly  in  the  case 
of  language  as  of  any  other  part.  Language  is  in  no 
way  to  be  separated  from  the  rest :  it  is  in  some  re- 
spects very  unlike  them;  but  so  are  they  unlike  one 
another;  if  it  be  the  one  most  fundamentally  impor- 
tant, most  highly  characteristic,  most  obviously  the 
product  and  expression  of  reason,  that  is  only  a  differ- 
ence of  degree. 
\/  We  regard  every  language,  then,  as  an  institution, 

one  of  those  which,  in  each  community,  make  up  its 
culture.  Like  all  the  constituent  elements  of  culture, 
it  is  various  in  every  community,  even  in  the  different 
individuals  composing  each.  Tbere  are  communities  in 
which  it  has  come  down  within  the  strict  limits  of  race; 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  LANGUAGE.  281 

in  others  it  has  been,  partly  or  wholly,  taken  from 
strange  races;  for,  like  the  rest,  it  is  capable  of  being 
transferred  or  shifted.  Eace-characteristics  can  only  go 
down  by  blood;  but  race-acquisitions — language  not 
less  than  religion,  or  science — can  be  borrowed  and 
lent. 

The  universality  of  language,  we  may  remark  in 
passing,  is  thus  due  to  nothing  more  profound  or  mys- 
terious than  that  every  division  of  the  human  race  has 
been  long  enough  in  existence  for  its  language-capaci- 
ties to  work  themselves  out  to  some  manner  of  result. 
Precisely  so,  there  is  a  universal  possession  by  men  of 
some  body  of  instruments,  to  help  the  hands  in  provid- 
ing for  human  needs.  This  universality  does  not  at  all 
prove  that,  if  we  could  see  coming  into  being  a  new 
race,  by  whatever  means  brought  the  existing  race  into 
being,  we  should  find  it  within  any  definite  assignable 
period  possessed  of  instruments — or  of  speech. 

But,  as  things  are,  every  community  of  men  has  a 
.common  language,  while  none  of  the  lower  animals  are 
possessed  of  such;  their  means  of  communication  being 
of  so  different  a  character  that  it  has  no  right  to  be 
called  by  the  same  name.  No  special  obligation  rests 
upon  the  linguist  to  explain  this  difference,  any  more 
than  upon  the  historian  of  art  or  of  mechanics  to  ex- 
plain why  the  lower  animals  are  neither  artists  nor 
machine-makers.  It  is  enough  for  him  to  point  out 
that,  the  gifts  of  man  being  such  as  they  are,  he  in- 
variably comes  to  the  possession  of  this  as  well  as  of  the 
other  elements  of  culture,  while  not  one  of  the  lower 
races  has  shown  itself  capable  of  originating  a  civiliza- 
tion, in  any  element,  linguistic  or  other;  their  utmost 
capacity  being  that  of  being  trained  by  the  higher  race 
to  the  exercise  of  activities  which  in  their  own  keeping 
19 


282         NATURE   AND   ORIGIN   OF   LANGUAGE. 

had  remained  undeveloped,  of  being  taught  various  arts 
and  acts,  performed  partly  mechanically,  partly  with  a 
certain  hardly  determinable  degree  of  intelligence.  But 
the  subject  is  one  upon  which  erroneous  views  are  so 
prevalent  that  we  can  hardly  help  giving  it  a  brief  con- 
sideration. 

The  essential  difference,  which  separates  man's 
means  of  communication  in  kind  as  well  as  degree  from 
that  of  the  other  animals,  is  that,  while  the  latter  is 
instinctive,  the  former  is,  in  all  its  parts,  arbitrary  and 
conventional.  That  this  is  so,  the  whole  course  of  our 
exposition  has  sufficiently  shown.  It  is  fully  proved  by 
the  single  circumstance  that  for  each  object,  or  act,  or 
quality,  there  are  as  many  names  as  there  are  languages 
in  the  world,  each  answering  as  good  a  purpose  as  any 
other,  and  capable  of  being  substituted  for  another  in 
the  usage  of  any  individual.  There  is  not  in  a  known 
language  a  single  item  which  can  be  truly  claimed  to 
exist  <f>vaei,  '  by  nature; '  each  stands  in  its  accepted  use 
0e<r€i,  '  by  an  act  of  attribution,'  in  which  men's  circum- 
stances, habits,  preferences,  will,  are  the  determining 
force.  Even  where  the  onomatopoeic  or  imitative  ele- 
ment is  most  conspicuous — as  in  cuckoo  and  pewee,  in 
crack  and  whiz — there  is  no  tie  of  necessity,  but  only 
of  convenience :  if  there  were  a  necessity,  it  would  ex- 
tend equally  to  other  animals  and  other  noises;  and 
also  to  all  tongues ;  while  in  fact  these  conceptions  have 
elsewhere  wholly  other  names.  No  man  can  become 
possessed  of  any  existing  language  without  learning  it ; 
no  animal  (that  we  know  of)-  has  any  expression  which 
he  learns,  which  is  not  the  direct  gift  of  nature  to  him. 
We  are  not  less  generously  treated  in  this  latter  respect 
than  the  animals;  we  have  also  our  "natural"  ex- 
pression, in  grimace,  gesture,  and  tone;  and  we  make 


VARIOUS   MEANS  OF   EXPRESSION.  283 

use  of  it:  on  the  one  hand,  for  communication  where 
the  usual  conventional  means  is  made  of  no  avail — as 
between  men  of  different  tongue,  or  those  who  by  deaf- 
ness are  cut  off  from  the  use  of  speech — and,  on  the 
other  hand,  for  embellishing  and  explaining  and  enforc- 
ing our  ordinary  language:  where  it  is  of  a  power  and 
value  that  no  student  of  language  can  afford  to  over- 
look. In  the  domain  of  feeling  and  persuasion,  in  all 
that  is  intended  to  impress  the  personality  of  the  com- 
municator upon  the  recipient,  it  possesses  the  highest 
consequence.  We  say  with  literal  truth  that  a  look,  a 
tone,,  a  gesture,  is  often  more  eloquent  than  elaborate 
speech.  Language  is  harmed  for  some  uses  by  its  con- 
ventionality. "Words  of  sympathy  or  affection  can  be 
repeated  parrot-like  by  one  whose  heartless  tone  takes 
all  value  from  them;  there  is  no  persuasion  in  a  dis- 
course which  is  given  as  if  from  a  mere  animated 
speaking-machine.  And  herein  comes  clearly  to  light 
the  true  sphere  of  natural  expression;  it  indicates  feel- 
ing, and  feeling  only.  From  the  cry  and  groan  and 
laugh  and  smile  up  to  the  lightest  variations  of  tone 
and  feature  which  the  skilled  elocutionist  uses,  it  is 
emotional,  subjective.  Not  a  tittle  of  evidence  has 
ever  been  brought  forward  to  show  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  the  natural  expression  of  an  intellectual 
conception,  of  a  judgment,  of  a  cognition.  It  is 
where  expression  quits  its  emotional  natural  basis,  and 
turns  to  intellectual  uses,  that  the  history  of  language 
begins. 

Nor  is  it  less  plain  what  inaugurates  the  conversion, 
and  becomes  the  main  determining  element  in  the 
whole  history  of  production  of  speech;  it  is  the  desire 
of  communication.  This  turns  the  instinctive  into  the 
intentional.     As  itself  becomes  more  distinct  and  con- 


284         NATURE   AND   ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

scious,  it  lifts  expression  of  all  kinds  above  its  natural 
basis,  and  makes  of  it  an  instrumentality;  capable,  as 
such,  of  indefinite  extension  and  improvement.  He 
who  (as  many  do)  leaves  this  force  out  of  account,  can- 
not but  make  utter  shipwreck  of  his  whole  linguistic 
philosophy.  Where  the  impulse  to  communication  is 
wanting,  ho  speech  comes  into  being.  Here,  again,  the 
parallelism  between  language  and  the  other  departments 
of  culture  is  close  and  instructive.  The  man  growing 
up  in  solitude  would  initiate  no  culture.  He  would 
never  come  to  a  knowledge  of  any  of  the  higher  things 
of  which  he  was  capable.  It  needs  not  only  the  inward 
power,  but  also  the  outward  occasion,  to  make  man 
what  he  is  capable  of  becoming.  This  is  characteristic 
of  his  whole  historical  attitude.  Eaces  and  generations 
of  men  have  passed  away  in  barbarism  and  ignorance 
who  were  as  capable  of  civilization  as  the  mass  of  the 
present  civilized  communities :  indeed,  there  are  such 
actually  passing  away  around  us.  It  is  in  no  wise  to 
deny  the  grand  endowments  of  human  nature  that  we 
ascribe  the  acquisition  of  speech  to  an  external  induce- 
ment. We  may  illustrate  the  case  by  a  comparison. 
A  stone  has  lain  motionless  for  ages  on  the  verge  of  a 
precipice,  and  may  lie  there  for  ages  longer;  all  the 
cosmic  forces  of  gravity  will  not  stir  it.  But  a  chance 
thrust  from  some  passing  animal  jostles  it  from  its 
equilibrium,  and  it  goes  crashing  down.  Which,  shall 
we  say,  caused  the  fall?  gravity,  or  the  thrust?  Each, 
in  its  way;  the  great  force  would  not  have  wrought 
this  particular  effect  but  for  the  aid  of  the  petty  one; 
and  there  is  nothing  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of 
gravitation  in  admitting  the  fact.  Just  so  in  language : 
the  great  and  wonderful  powers  of  the  human  soul 
would  never  move  in  this  particular  direction  but  for 


THE   IMPULSE  TO   COMMUNICATION.         285 

the  added  push  given  by  the  desire  of  communication; 
when  this  leads  the  way,  all  the  rest  follows. 

Our  recognition  of  the  determining  force  of  this 
element  is  far  from  implying  that  communication  is  the 
sole  end,  or  the  highest  end,  of  speech.  We  have  suf- 
ficently  noticed,  in  the  second  chapter,  the  infinite  value 
of  expression  to  the  operations  of  each  individual  mind 
and  soul,  and  its  fundamental  value  as  an  element  in 
the  progress  of  the  race.  But  it  is  here  as  elsewhere; 
men  strive  after  that  which  is  nearest  and  most  obvious 
to  them,  and  attain  thereby  a  vast  deal  more  than  they 
foresaw.  In  the  devising  and  constructing  of  instru- 
ments, of  all  kinds,  men  have  had  directly  in  view  only 
what  may  be  called  the  lower  uses  of  them,  their  im- 
mediate contributions  to  comfort  and  safety  and  sensu- 
ous enjoyment;  but  the  result  has  been  a  calling-out  of 
many  of  the  higher  powers  which  could  find  appropriate 
exercise  in  no  other  way,  a  reduction  of  Nature  to  ser- 
vice in  a  manner  that  allows  a  part  of  the  race  to  engage 
in  the  more  elevated  and  elevating  occupations;  and  a 
discovery  of  truths  in  bewildering  abundance.  A  yet 
closer  parallel  is  afforded  by  the  closely  kindred  art  of 
writing,  which  adds  to  and  enhances  all  the  advantages 
belonging  to  the  art  of  speech,  and  is  as  indispensable 
to  the  highest  culture  as  is  speech  to  the  lower;  but, 
like  speech,  it  came  into  being  by  a  process  in  which 
the  only  conscious  motive  was  communication;  all  its 
superior  uses  followed  in  the  train  of  that,  and  were 
unthought  of  until  experience  disclosed  them;  indeed, 
they  are  even  yet  unthought  of  by  the  greater  part  of 
those  who  derive  advantage  from  them.  And  this  last 
is  true,  to  a  degree  which  we  must  not  fail  to  observe, 
of  spoken  language  also:  its  higher  uses  are  not  con- 
scious ones.     Not  one  in  a  hundred,  or  a  thousand,  of 


28(5        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

those  who  speak  realizes  that  he  "  uses  language ;  "  but 
there  is  no  one  who  does  not  know  well  enough  that  he 
can  talk.  That  is  to  say,  language,  to  the  general  ap- 
prehension of  its  users,  is  simply  a  means  of  receiving 
from  others  and  giving  to  them:  what  it  is  to  the  in- 
dividual soul,  what  it  is  to  the  race,  few  have  reach  of 
vision  to  see.  And  least  of  all  is  such  penetration  to  be 
credited  to  primitive  man :  he,  especially,  needs  some 
motive  right  before  his  eyes,  and  of  which  he  can  feel 
every  moment  the  impelling  force;  and  the  desire  to 
\l  communicate  Math  his  fellows  is  that  motive,  the  sole 
and  the  wholly  sufficient  one.  He  has  no  thoughts 
swelling  in  his  soul  and  demanding  utterance;  he  has 
no  foreboding  of  high  capacities  which  only  need  educa- 
tion to  make  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels;  he 
feels  nothing  but  the  nearest  and  most  urgent  needs. 
If  language  broke  out  from  within,  driven  by  the 
wants  of  the  soul,  it  ought  to  come  forth  fastest  and 
most  fully  in  the  solitary;  since  he,  cut  off  from  other 
means  of  improvement,  is  thrown  back  upon  this  as  his 
only  resource :  but  the  solitary  man  is  as  speechless  as 
the  lower  animals. 

There  might  be  ground  for  questioning  this  conclu- 
sion as  to  the  decisive  value  of  the  impulse  to  com- 
munication in  the  initiation  of  language-history,  if  the 
after-course  of  that  history  showed  entire  independence 
of  it.  That  is  no  acceptable  scientific  explanation 
which  calls  in  a  special  force  at  the  beginning,  like  a 
deus  ex  macliina,  to  accomplish  what  we  cannot  see  to 
J  be  otherwise  feasible,  and  then  to  retire  and  act  no 
more.  But  communication  is  the  leading  determinative 
force  throughout.  This  it  is  for  which  and  by  which 
we  make  our  first  acquisitions;  this  leads  us,  when 
circumstances  change,  to  lay  our  old  acquisitions  aside 


NATURAL  BASIS  OP  LANGUAGE.  287 

and  make  new;  this  determines  the  unity  of  a  lan- 
guage, and  puts  a  restraint  upon  its  dialectic  variation ; 
this  is,  both  consciously  and  unconsciously,  recognized 
by  every  individual  as  the  regulator:  we  speak  so  as  to 
be  intelligible  to  others;  we  hear  and  learn  that  we 
may  understand  them;  we  do  not  speak  simply  as  we 
ourselves  choose,  letting  others  understand  us  if  they 
can  and  will. 

If  this  be  so,  then  we  have  virtually  solved,  so  far 
as  it  admits  of  solution,  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
language;  we  have  ascertained  what  was  the  original 
basis,  and  what  the  character  of  its  development.  The 
basis  was  the  natural  cries  of  human  beings,  expressive 
of  their  feelings,  and  capable  of  being  understood  as 
such  by  their  fellows.  That  is  to  say,  the  basis  so  far 
as  audible  speech  is  concerned;  for  it  is  not  to  be  main- 
tained that  this  was  the  only,  or  even  the  principal, 
means  of  primitive  expression.  Gesture  and  grimace 
are  every  whit  as  natural  and  as  immediately  intelli- 
gible; and  in  the  undeveloped  condition  of  expression 
every  available  means  will  unquestionably  have  been 
resorted  to,  perhaps  with  a  long  predominance  of  the 
visible  over  the  audible.  But  it  cannot  be  that  the  use 
of  the  voice  for  expression  should  not  have  been  sug- 
gested and  initiated  by  Nature's  own  endowments  in 
this  direction. 

Here,  however,  comes  in  a  question  respecting  which 
even  the  most  recent  opinions,  and  among  those  who  in 
general  accept  the  view  of  language  here  taken,  are 
divided.  How  wide  was  this  basis,  and  of  what  and 
how  definite  character?  Did  it  consist  of  articulate 
sounds  instinctively  attached  to  certain  conceptions? 
Was  there  a  limited  natural  vocabulary  of  actual  words 
or  roots,  of  the  same  kind  with  later  language,  and 


288         NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

needing  only  to  be  extended  into  the  latter?  There 
are  those  who  would  answer  these  questions  in  the  af- 
firmative, and  who  hold,  therefore,  that  the  fruitful  way 
to  investigate  concretely  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
language  is  to  study  the  means  of  expression  of  the 
lower  animals,  especially  of  those  which  stand  nearest 
to  man,  in  order  to  find  there  something  analogous  with 
the  roots  of  our  speech.  But  this  view  has  its  basis  in 
the  clinging  impression,  which  many  of  those  who  rea- 
son and  write  about  language  cannot  possibly  get  rid 
of,  that  there  is  somehow  a  real  internal  connection  be- 
tween at  least  a  part  of  our  words  and  the  ideas  which 
these  represent — if  one  could  only  find  out  what  it  is. 
If  we  recognize  the  truths  that  all  existing  human 
speech  is  in  every  part  and  particle  conventional,  that 
all  of  which  there  is  record  in  the  past  was  of  the  same 
character,  and  that  there  is  an  utter  absence  of  evidence 
going  to  show  that  any  uttered  sound,  any  combination 
of  articulations,  comes  or  ever  came  into  existence  as 
£-  the  natural  sign  of  an  intellectual  conception — we  shall 
be  led  to  look  with  extreme  disfavor  upon  any  sugges- 
tion of  this  kind.  Beyond  all  question,  it  is  wholly 
uncalled  for  by  necessity:  the  tones  significant  of  feel- 
ing, of  which  no  one  can  deny  the  existence  because 
they  are  still  an  important  part  of  our  expression,  are 
fully  capable  of  becoming  the  effective  initiators  of 
language.  Spoken  language  began,  we  may  say.  when 
a  cry  of  pain,  formerly  wrung  out  by  real  suffering,  and 
seen  to  be  understood  and  sympathized  with,  was  re- 
peated in  imitation,  no  longer  as  a  mere  instinctive 
utterance,  but  for  the  purpose  of  intimating  to  another, 
"  I  am  (was,  shall  be)  suffering;  "  when  an  angry  growl, 
formerly  the  direct  expression  of  passion,  was  repro- 
duced to  signify  disapprobation  and  threatening;  and 


INSTINCTS  OP  MAN.  289 

the  like.     This  was  enough  to  serve  as  foundation  for 
all  that  should  be  built  upon  it. 

It  is  further  to  be  considered,  in  judging  this  point, 
that,  as  we  approach  man,  the  general  capacities  in- 
crease, but  the  specific  instincts,  the  already  formed 
and  as  it  were  educated  capacities,  decrease.  It  is 
among  the  insects  that  we  find  those  wonderful  arts 
which  seem  like  the  perfected  results  of  training  of  a 
limited  intellect ;  it  is  among  birds  that  we  find  specific 
modes  of  nest-building  and  a  highly  art-like,  almost 
artistic,  song.  Man  is  capable  of  accpiiring  everything, 
but  he  begins  in  the  actual  possession  of  next  to  noth- 
ing. Except  suckling,  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  born 
with  an  instinct.  His  long  helpless  infancy,  while  the 
chicken  and  the  calf  run  about  and  help  themselves 
from  the  very  day  of  their  birth,  is  characteristic  of 
Nature's  whole  mode  of  treatment  of  him.  There  is 
no  plausibility  in  the  suggestion  that  he  should  have 
begun  social  life  with  a  naturally  implanted  capital  of 
the  means  of  social  communication — and  any  more  in 
the  form  of  words  than  in  that  of  gestures.  It  is  a 
blunder  of  our  educated  habit  to  regard  the  voice  as 
the  specific  instrument  of  expression;  it  is  only  one  of 
several  instruments.  We  might  just  as  hopefully  look 
among  the  higher  animals  for  the  particular  and  definite 
beginnings  out  of  which  our  clothes,  our  buildings,  our 
instruments,  are  a  development.  In  these  departments 
of  human  production,  we  see  clearly  enough  what  the 
natural  beginning  should  have  been.  No  animal  save 
man  is  known  to  make  any  attempt  at  dressing;  but  if 
any  did,  it  would  amount  to  nothing;  for  there  are 
tribes  of  men  that  go  utterly,  or  almost  utterly,  naked; 
and  no  one,  probably,  would  think  of  suggesting  that 
the  rudiments  of  dress  are  not  a  turning  to  account,  for 


290         NATURE   AND   ORIGIN   OF  LANGUAGE. 

perceived  purposes  of  comfort  or  decency,  just  such 
materials  as  Nature  placed  in  man's  way.  The  earliest 
shelters  were  of  the  same  sort :  it  would  be  of  high  in- 
terest to  find  the  animals  nearest  to  man  showing  that 
kind  of  capacity  which  he  possesses,  of  putting  to  use 
freely,  simply  as  directed  by  circumstances,  the  varied 
resources  of  Xature;  but  probably  the  idea  has  never 
come  into  any  one's  head  that  man,  as  an  animal  unedu- 
cated, would  be  found  building  a  particular  style  of 
shelter  (as  the  beaver  its  dam,  the  oriole  its  hanging 
nest,  the  wasp  its  cells),  out  of  which  have  grown,  by 
a  process  showing  nowhere  a  salt  us  or  lacuna,  the 
huts  and  palaces  and  temples  of  the  more  educated 
races.  And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  instruments : 
clubs  and  stones  we  allow  to  have  been  the  first,  only 
because  Nature  offers  such  most  conveniently  within 
reach  of  the  beings  who  were  gifted  with  mind  enough 
to  see  how  they  could  be  made  available  for  perceived 
needs. 

Now  it  is  only  an  unclear  or  a  false  view  of  the  na- 
ture of  speech  that  prevents  any  from  seeing  that  its 
case  is  entirely  analogous  with  these  others,  and  that  to 
postulate,  and  then  seek  for  traces  of,  a  primitive  basis 
for  language  in  the  form  of  specific  articulate  signs  for 
ideas  is  an  uncalled-for,  even  a  necessarily  vain  and  fu- 
tile, proceeding.  It  is,  indeed,  a  matter  of  high  interest, 
and  promising  of  valuable  instruction,  to  investigate  as 
closely  as  possible  the  means  of  communication  of  the 
lower  animals,  so  as  to  determine  its  character  and 
scope;  but  the  point  calling  for  special  attention  is, 
how  far  the  natural  tones  and  utterances  and  postures 
and  movements  are  used  secondarily  and  mediately,  for 
the  purpose  of  signifying  something,  in  rudimentary 
correspondence  with  what  we  have  seen  to  be  the  infer- 


THE  VOICE  AS  MEANS  OP  EXPRESSION.      291 

able  beginnings  of  human  language-making.  We  need 
not  be  surprised  to  find,  in  more  than  one  quarter,  such 
methods  of  communication  in  use,  only  limited,  and, 
for  lack  of  the  right  kind  and  degree  of  capacity  in 
their  users,  incapable  of  development;  and  these  would 
be  the  real  analogues  of  speech,  and  would  bridge  the 
saltus  of  which  some  are  afraid.  If  the  Darwinian 
theory  is  true,  and  man  a  development  out  of  some  " 
lower  animal,  it  is  at  any  rate  conceded  that  the  last 
and  nearest  transition-forms  have  perished,  perhaps  ex- 
terminated by  him  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  as  his 
special  rivals,  during  his  prehistoric  ages  of  wild- 
ness;  if  they  could  be  restored,  we  should  find  the 
transition-forms  toward  our  speech  to  be,  not  at  all  a 
minor  provision  of  natural  articulate  signs,  but  an  in- 
ferior system  of  conventional  signs,  in  tone,  gesture, 
and  grimace. 

As  between  the  three  natural  means  of  expression 
just  mentioned,  and  constantly  had  in  view  by  us  in 
this  discussion,  it  is  simply  by  a  kind  of  process  of 
natural  selection  and  survival  of  the  fittest  that  the  y 
voice  has  gained  the  upper  hand,  and  come  to  be  so 
much  the  most  prominent  that  we  give  the  name  of 
language  (' tonguiness ')  to  all  expression.  There  is  no 
mysterious  connection  between  the  thinking  apparatus  v 
and  the  articulating  apparatus,  whereby  the  action  that 
forms  a  thought  sets  the  tongue  swinging  to  utter  it. 
Apart  from  the  emotional  (and  non-articulate)  natural 
cries  and  tones,  the  muscles  of  the  larynx  and  mouth 
are  no  nearer  to  the  soul  than  those  of  voluntary  mo- 
tion, by  which,  among  other  things,  gestures  are  pro- 
duced. Besides  the  lack  of  all  evidence  in  language, 
rightly  understood,  to  indicate  such  connection,  it  is 
sufficiently  disproved,  in  a  positive  way,  by  the  absence 


292        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OP  LANGUAGE. 

of  vocal  expression  in  the  deaf,  whose  thinking  and  ar- 
ticulating apparatus  is  all  in  normal  order,  but  who,  by 
the  numbing  of  the  single  nerve  of  audition,  are  re- 
moved from  the  disturbing  infection  of  conventional 
speech;  it  ought  to  be  many  times  more  instructive  to 
watch  the  "  natural  utterances  "  of  a  person  thus  affected 
than  to  study  the  jabberings  of  monkeys.  The  analogy 
between  gesture  and  speech  here  is  in  the  highest  de- 
gree instructive.  The  hands  and  arms  are  muscular 
instruments  under  control  of  the  same  mind  which  pro- 
duces conceptions  and  judgments.  Among  their  mani- 
fold capacities,  they  are  able  to  make  gestures,  of  infi- 
nite variety,  all  of  which  are  reported  by  the  vibrations 
of  the  luminiferous  etber  to  a  certain  apprehending  or- 
gan, the  eye,  both  of  the  maker  and  of  others.  There 
is  a  natural  basis  of  instinctive  gesture,  which  to  the 
human  intellect  is  capable  of  suggesting  a  method  of 
intimation  of  intended  meaning,  developable  into  a 
complete  system  of  expression;  and  it  is  so  developed 
for  the  use  of  those  who  by  lack  of  power  to  hear  are 
cut  off  from  the  superior  advantages  of  the  other  means 
of  expression.  In  the  same  manner,  the  larynx  and 
the  parts  which  lie  between  it  and  the  outer  world  are 
muscular  organs,  movable  by  the  same  will  which  moves 
the  arms  and  hands.  The  parts  have  other  offices  to 
perform  besides  that  of  shaping  tone;  and  the  tone 
which  it  is  the  sole  office  of  the  vocal  chords  to  generate 
is  for  other  purposes  as  well  as  that  of  utterance:  yet, 
along  with  other  things,  they  can  produce  an  indefinite 
variety  of  modified  vibrations,  reported  through  the 
sympathetic  vibrations  of  the  air  to  another  apprehend- 
ing organ,  the  ear,  both  of  the  producer  and  of  others; 
and  the  sounds  so  reported  are  capable  of  combination 
into  groups  practically  infinite  in  number.     There  is  a 


THE  VOICE  AS  MEANS  OF  EXPRESSION.      293 

natural  basis  of  tonic  expression;  and  on  this  and  by 
its  suggestion  human  intelligence  has  worked  out  a  great 
number  of  diverse  systems  of  expression,  used,  one  or 
other  of  them,  by  all  ordinarily  endowed  men. 

There  is  nothing  here  to  require  the  admission  of  a 
peculiar  connection  between  thought  and  articulate  ut- 
terance. In  a  certain  sense,  it  is  true,  the  voice  may 
fairly  be  said  to  have  been  given  us  for  the  purpose  of 
speech;  but  it  is  only  as  the  hands  have  been  given  us 
to  write  with;  our  speaking  organs  do  also  our  tasting, 
breathing,  eating.  So  iron  has  been  given  us  to  make 
rails  with  for  fast  traveling:  that  is  to  say,  among  the 
various  substances  provided  in  the  world  for  man's  vari- 
ous uses,  iron  is  the  one  best  suited  to  this  use;  its 
qualities  had  only  to  be  discovered  by  men,  in  the 
course  of  their  experience  of  Nature,  and,  when  the 
time  for  the  use  came,  the  perception  of  its  adaptedness, 
and  the  application,  necessarily  followed.  In  the  course 
of  man's  experience,  it  has  come  to  light  that  the  voice 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  available  means  of  communi- 
cation, for  reasons  which  are  not  hard  to  understand: 
it  acts  with  least  expenditure  of  effort;  it  leaves  the 
hands,  much  more  variously  efficient  and  hard-worked 
members,  at  leisure  for  other  work  at  the  same  time; 
and  it  most  easily  compels  attention  from  any  direction. 
Only  the  smallest  part  of  its  capacities  are  laid  under 
contribution  for  the  uses  of  speech;  of  the  indefinite 
number  of  distinguishable  sounds  which  it  can  pro- 
duce, only  a  fraction,  of  twelve  to  fifty,  are  put  to 
use  in  any  one  language;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
selection  to  characterize  a  race,  or  to  be  used  (except 
in  the  same  historical  way  as  language  in  general)  for 
ethnological  distinction :  from  among  the  many  possi- 
bles, these  have  chanced  to  be  taken;  mainly  the  sounds 


294        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

easiest  to  make,  and  broadly  distinguished  from  one  an- 
other. 

Under  these  determining  considerations,  vocal  utter- 
ance has  become  everywhere  the  leading  means  of  ex- 
pression, and  has  so  multiplied  its  resources  that  tone, 
and  still  more  gesture,  has  assumed  the  subordinate 
office  of  aiding  the  effectiveness  of  what  is  uttered. 
And  the  lower  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  speaker 
and  the  spoken-to,  the  more  indispensable  is  the  addi- 
tion of  tone  and  gesture.  It  belongs  to  the  highest 
development  of  speech  that  the  word  written  and 
read  should  have  something  like  the  same  power  as 
the  word  spoken  and  heard;  that  the  personality  of 
the  writer,  even  his  frame  of  mind,  should  be  felt, 
and  should  move  the  sympathetic  feeling  of  the  reader. 
And  yet,  it  should  also  be  noted  here  that,  as  we  saw 
in  the  twelfth  chapter,  there  are  languages  (e.  g.  Chi- 
nese) in  which  tone  and  inflection  come  to  be  used,  in  a 
secondary  and  conventional  way,  to  eke  out  the  too 
scanty  resources  of  intellectual  designation. 

If  we  thus  accept  the  impulse  to  communicate  as 
the  governing  principle  of  speech-development,  and  the 
voice  as  the  agent  whose  action  we  have  especially  to 
trace,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  establish  other  points  in 
the  earliest  history.  Whatever  offered  itself  as  the 
most  feasible  means  of  arriving  at  mutual  understand- 
ing would  be  soonest  turned  to  account.  We  have  re- 
garded the  reproduction,  with  intent  to  signify  some- 
thing, of  the  natural  tones  and  cries,  as  the  positively 
earliest  speech;  but  this  would  so  immediately  and  cer- 
tainly come  to  be  combined  with  imitative  or  onomato- 
poetic  utterances,  that  the  distinction  in  time  between 
the  two  is  rather  theoretical  than  actual.  Indeed,  the 
reproduction  itself  is  in  a  certain  way  onomatopoetic; 


ONOMATOPOETIC   EXPRESSION.  295 

it  imitates,  so  to  speak,  the  cries  of  the  human  animal, 
in  order  to  intimate  secondarily  what  those  cries  in  their 
primary  use  signified  directly.  Just  as  soon,  at  any 
rate,  as  an  inkling  of  the  value  of  communication  was 
gained,  and  the  process  began  to  be  performed  a  little 
more  consciously,  the  range  of  imitation  would  be  ex- 
tended. This  is  a  direct  corollary  to  the  principles  laid  1/ 
down  above.  Mutual  intelligence  being  aimed  at,  and 
audible  utterance  the  means  employed,  audible  sounds 
will  be  the  matter  most  readily  represented  and  con- 
veyed; just  as  something  else  would  come  easiest  to 
one  who  used  a  different  means.  To  repeat  once  more 
the  old  and  well-worn,  but  telling,  illustration:  if  we 
had  the  conception  of  a  dog  to  signif}',  and  the  instru- 
mentality were  pictorial,  we  should  draw  the  outline 
figure  of  a  dog;  if  the  means  were  gesture,  we  should 
imitate  some  characteristic  visible  act  of  the  animal — 
for  example,  its  bite,  or  the  wagging  of  its  tail;  if  it 
were  voice,  we  should  say  "  bow-wow."  This  is  the 
simple  explanation  of  the  importance  which  is  and  must 
be  attributed  to  the  onomatopoetic  principle  in  the  early 
stages  of  language-making.  We  have  no  need  of  ap- 
pealing to  any  special  tendency  toward  imitation.  Man 
is,  to  be  sure,  an  imitative  animal,  as  we  may  fairly  say ; 
but  not  in  an  instinctive  or  mechanical  way;  he  is  imi- 
tative because  he  has  the  capacity  to  notice  and  appre- 
ciate what  he  sees,  in  other  animals  or  in  nature,  and  to 
reproduce  it  in  imitative  show,  if  anything  is  to  be 
gained  thereby — whether  amusement,  or  artistic  pleas- 
ure, or  communication.  He  is  an  imitator  just  as  he  is 
an  artist;  the  latter  is  only  the  higher  development  of 
the  former. 

The  scope  of  the  imitative  principle  is  by  no  means 
restricted  to  the  sounds  which  occur  in  nature,  although 


A 


296        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OP  LANGUAGE. 

these  are  the  most  obvious  and  easiest  subjects  of  sig- 
nificative reproduction.  What  it  is,  may  be  seen  in  part 
from  the  range  of  onomatopoetic  words  in  known  lan- 
guages. There  is  a  figurative  use  of  imitation,  where- 
by rapid,  slow,  abrupt,  repetitive  motions  are  capable  of 
being  signified  by  combinations  of  sounds  which  make 
something  such  an  impression  on  the  mind  through 
the  ear  as  the  motions  in  question  do  through  the  eye. 
And  we  can  well  conceive  that,  while  this  was  the  chief 
efficient  suggestion  of  expression,  men's  minds  may  have 
been  sharpened  to  catch  and  incorporate  analogies  which 
now  escape  our  notice,  because,  having  a  plentiful  pro- 
vision of  expression  from  other  sources,  we  no  longer 
have  our  attention  keenly  directed  to  them. J  Our  judg- 
ments on  such  points  as  this  can  only  be  partially  trust- 
ed, and  must  be  tested  with  extreme  caution,  because 
we  are  all  of  us  now  the  creatures  of  educated  habit,  and 
cannot  look  at  things  as  men  uneducated  and  with  no 
formed  habits  would  do.  We  can  safely  investigate  and 
combine  and  speculate  in  this  direction,  if  we  keep  fully 
in  mind  the  governing  principle  that  mutual  intelli- 
gence is  the  end,  and  that  whatever  conduces  to  mutual 
intelligence,  and  that  alone,  is  the  acceptable  means. 
We  shall  thus  be  saved  from  running  off  into,  or  tow- 
ard, that  most  absurd  doctrine,  the  absolute  natural  sig- 
nificance of  articulate  sounds,  and  the  successful  intima- 
tion of  complex  ideas  by  a  process  of  piecing  these  ele- 
ments together. 

There  are  one  or  two  further  points  connected  with 
this  theory  of  the  imitative  origin  of  language  which 
call  for  a  few  words  of  explanation.  In  the  first  place, 
it  does  not  rest  on  a  discovery  of  the  signs  of  onoma- 
topoeia as  predominant  in  the  early  traceable  stages  of 
language.    Those  stages  are  still  too  far  from  the  begin- 


THE   IMITATIVE   PRINCIPLE.  297 

nino-  to  furnish  any  such  discovery.     The  intent  was  to 
find  means  of  mutual  intelligence;  and  when  this  was 
won,  the  way  it  came  was  a  matter  of  small  consequence, 
and  might  be  left  to  be  covered  up.     This  has  been,  as 
we  abundantly  saw  above,  a  governing  tendency  in  the 
growth  of  speech  down  to  the  present  time.     Speakers 
know  not  and  care  not  whence  their  words  came;  they 
know  simply  what  they  mean;  even  the  wisest  of  us 
can  trace  the  history  of  only  a  small  part  of  his  vocabu- 
lary, and  only  a  little  way.     The  very  earliest  dialects 
are  as  exclusively  conventional  as  the  latest ;  the  savage 
has  no  keener  sense  of  etymological  connection  than  the 
man  of  higher  civilization.     Nothing  has  done  so  much 
to  discredit  the  imitative  theory  with  sound  and  sober 
linguistic  scholars  as  the  way  in  which  some  pass  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  true  science  in  their  attempts  to 
trace  our  living  vocabularies  to  mimetic  originals.    The 
theory  does,  indeed,  rest  in  part  on  the  undeniable  pres- 
ence of  a  considerable  onomatopoetic  element  in  later 
speech,  and  on  the  fact  that  new  material  is  actually 
won  in  this  way  through  the  whole  history  of  language ; 
onomatopoeia  is  thus  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  vera  causa, 
attested  by  familiar  fact;  and  nothing  that  is  not  so 
attested — for   example,   the   assumed   immediate   intel- 
lectual significance  of  articulate  combinations — has  the 
right  to  stand  as  a  causa  at  all;  but  it  rests  also  in 
part,  and  in  the  main  part,  on  the  necessities  of  the  case, 
as  inferred  from  the  whole  traceable  history  of  speech 
and    its    relation   to    thought,    its    use    and    its    value. 
Here  is  just  the  other  support  which  it  needs:  no  ac- 
count of  the  origin  of  language  is  scientific  which  does 
not  join  directly  on  to  the  later  history  of  language  with- 
out a  break,  being  of  one  piece  with  that  history. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  it  may  at  first  sight  seem 
20 


298         NATURE  AND   ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

to  some  that  there  is  a  break  in  the  history :  for  why  do 
we  not  still  go  on  to  make  words  abundantly  by  onoma- 
topoeia? A  moment's  thought  will  show  the  baseless- 
ness of  this  objection.  The  office  of  onomatopoeia  was 
the  provision,  by  the  easiest  attainable  method,  of  the 
means  of  mutual  intelligence;  in  proportion,  then,  as  it 
became  easier  to  make  the  same  provision  by  another 
method,  the  differentiation  and  new  application  of  signs 
already  existing,  the  primitive  method  went  into  com- 
parative disuse — as  it  has  ever  since  continued,  though 
never  absolutely  unused. 

Once  more,  our  theory  furnishes  the  satisfactory 
solution  of  a  difficulty  which  has  had  influence  with 
some  minds.  Why  should  the  germs  of  speech  be  what 
we  have  called  roots,  elements  indicative  of  such  ab- 
stract things  as  acts  and  qualities?  surely  concrete 
objects  are  soonest  and  most  easily  apprehended  by 
the  mind.  Without  stopping  to  dispute  on  more  philo- 
sophical grounds  this  last  assertion,  claiming  instead 
that  we  apprehend  only  the  concreted  qualities  and  acts 
of  objects,  it  will  be  more  to  the  point  with  those  who 
feel  the  difficulty  to  note  that  the  process  of  speech  is 
one  of  signifying,  and  that  only  the  separate  qualities 
of  objects,  at  any  rate,  are  capable  of  being  signified. 
To  revert  to  our  former  example:  there  may  be  a  state 
of  mind  in  which  there  should  exist  a  confused  concrete 
impression  of  a  dog,  just  sufficient  to  make  it  possible 
to  recognize  another  as  agreeing  with  one  already  seen, 
but  without  any  distinct  sense  of  its  various  attributes. 
But  so  long  as  that  is  the  case,  no  production  of  a  sign 
is  possible :  it  is  only  when  one  has  so  clear  a  conception 
of  its  form  that  he  can  signify  it  by  a  rude  outline  pict- 
ure, or  of  its  characteristic  acts  that  he  can  reproduce 
the  bite,  or  wag,  or  bark,  in  imitation  of  them,  that  he 


ROOTS.  299 

is  ready  for  an  act  of  language-making  of  which  the  dog 
shall  be  the  subject.  And  so  with  every  other  case; 
the  first  acts  of  comparing  and  abstracting  must  pre- 
cede, and  the  first  signs  must  follow;  even  as  we  have 
before  seen  that  it  is  through  the  whole  history  of 
speech:  the  conception  first,  then  the  nomenclative 
act.  And  bow-wow  is  a  type,  a  normal  example,  of  the 
whole  genus  "  root."  It  is  a  sign,  a  hint,  that  calls 
before  the  properly  prepared  mind  a  certain  conception, 
or  set  of  related  conceptions :  the  animal  itself,  the  act, 
the  time  and  other  circumstances  of  hearing  it,  and  what 
followed.  It  does  not  mean  any  one  of  these  things 
exclusively;  it  comprehends  them  all.  It  is  not  a  verb, 
for  that  adds  the  idea  of  predication ;  nor  is  it  a  name : 
it  may  be  put  to  use  in  either  of  these  two  senses. 
What  it  comes  nearest  in  itself  to  meaning  is  '  the  action 
of  barking ' — just  that  form  of  abstraction  into  which 
we  now  most  naturally  and  properly  cast  the  sense  of  a 
"  root."  And  so  with  both  the  other  suggested  signs. 
Only,  the  outline  figure  has  a  decidedly  more  concrete 
character  than  either  of  the  others,  and  is  in  a  certain 
way  their  antithesis.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  and  one  tell- 
ingly illustrative  of  how  the  character  of  the  sign  de- 
pends on  the  instrumentality  by  which  it  is  made,  that 
hieroglyphic  systems  of  representation  of  thought  (which 
are  in  their  origin  independent  systems,  parallel  with 
speech,  though  they  are  wont  finally  to  come  into  servi- 
tude to  speech)  begin  with  the  signs  for  concrete  objects, 
and  arrive  from  these,  and  secondarily,  at  the  designa- 
tion of  acts  and  qualities.  In  Chinese,  a  combination 
of  the  hieroglyphs  of  sun  and  moon  makes  the  character 
for  '  light '  and  '  shine ; '  in  speech,  on  the  contrary, 
both  luminaries  are  apt  to  be  named  from  their  shin- 
ing (see  above,  p.  83).    In  Egyptian,  a  picture  of  a  pair 


300        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

of  legs  in  motion  means  '  walk ; '  while,  with  us,  the 
fuut  is  so  named  as  being  the  '  walker.' 

That  by  the  methods  thus  described  it  was  possible 
to  make  a  provision  of  signs  capable  of  development,  by 
processes  not  different  from  those  traceable  in  the  his- 
toric period  of  language,  into  such  vocabularies  as  we 
find  actually  existing,  it  does  not  seem  as  if  any  one 
could  reasonably  deny.  If  this  is  true,  and  if  the 
methods  are  not  only  not  inconsistent,  but  even  in  com- 
plete harmony,  with  the  whole  traceable  course  of  hu- 
man action  on  language,  then  we  have  found  an  accept- 
able solution  of  that  part  of  the  problem  we  are  seek- 
ing to  solve  which  is  at  present  within  our  reach.  A 
scientific  solution  requires  that  we  take  man  as  he  is, 
with  no  other  gifts  than  those  we  see  him  to  possess, 
but  also  with  all  those  that  constitute  his  endowment  as 
man,  and  examine  whether  and  how  he  would  possess 
himself  of  the  beginnings  of  speech,  analogous  with 
those  which  our  historical  analysis  shows  to  have  been 
the  germs  of  the  after-development,  but  beyond  which 
historical  research  will  not  carry  us.  As  he  would,  if 
need  were,  make  the  acquisition  now,  so  may  he,  or 
must  he,  have  made  it  of  old.  This  is  not  a  part  of 
Y^  V  the  historical  science  of  language,  but  a  corollary  to  it, 
a  subject  for  the  anthropologist  who  is  also  a  linguistic 
scholar,  who  knows  what  language  is  to  nlan,  and  how. 
He  is  not  prepared  to  deal  with  it  who  is  merely  master 
of  the  facts  of  many  languages. 

Of  course,  a  language  thus  produced  would  be  a  rude 
and  rudimentary  means  of  expression.  But  that  con- 
stitutes, in  the  mind  of  the  modern  anthropologist,  no 
bar  to  the  acceptance  of  the  theory.  If  we  deny  to 
primitive  man  the  possession  of  the  other  elements  of 
civilization,  and  hold  him  to  have  gradually  developed 


IMPERFECTION  OP   PRIMITIVE  LANGUAGE.     301 

them  out  of  scanty  beginnings  made  by  himself,  then 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  hold  the  same 
view  in  respect  to  language,  which  is  only  such  an  ele- 
ment. Even  in  existing  languages  the  differences  of 
degree  are  great,  as  in  existing  states  of  culture  in  gen- 
eral. An  infinity  of  things  can  be  said  in  English 
which  cannot  be  said  in  Fijian  or  Hottentot;  a  vast 
deal,  doubtless,  can  be  said  in  Fijian  or  Hottentot 
which  could  not  be  said  in  the  first  human  languages. 
For  what  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  distinct,  even  cul- 
tivated and  elaborate,  expression,  by  only  a  few  hun- 
dred formless  roots,  we  have  a  brilliant,  almost  a  start- 
ling, example  in  the  Chinese.  Of  how  sentences  can 
be  made  of  roots  alone,  with  the  relations  left  to  be  sup- 
plied by  the  intelligently  apprehending  mind,  the  same 
tongue  is  a  sufficient  illustration.  The  Greek,  or  Ger- 
man, or  English,  can  elaborate  a  thought  in  a  period 
half  a  page  long,  determining  by  proper  connectives 
the  relation  of  each  of  its  clauses  to  the  central  idea, 
and  also,  in  widely  varying  degree  and  method,  that  of 
the  members  of  each  clause  to  one  another.  This  is  a 
capacity  which  belongs  only  to  languages  of  high  cul- 
tivation, working  on  a  richly  inflective  basis.  Many 
another  tongue  can  form  only  simple  clauses,  possessing 
no  more  intricate  apparatus  of  connection  than  '  ands  ' 
and  '  buts,'  "mough  having  form  enough  in  its  words 
to  construct  a  clause  of  defined  parts.  Yet  others  lack 
this  definition  of  parts;  they  strike  only  at  the  leading 
ideas,  presenting  them  in  such  order  that  the  hearer 
supplies  the  missing  relations  out  of  his  general  compre- 
hension of  what  must  be  the  intended  meaning.  And 
it  is  but  another  step  backward  to  the  primitive  root- 
condition  of  speech,  where  an  utterance  or  two  had  to 
do  the  duty  of  a  whole  clause.     Men  thus  began,  not 


302        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

with  parts  of  speech  which  they  afterward  learned  to 
piece  together  into  sentences,  but  with  comprehensive 
utterances  in  which  the  parts  of  speech  lay  as  yet  unde- 
veloped, sentences  in  the  germ;  a  single  word  signify- 
ing a  whole  statement,  as  even  yet  sometimes  with  us: 
only  then  from  poverty,  as  now  from  economy.  To 
demand  that  u  sentences,"  in  the  present  sense  of  that 
term,  with  subject  and  predicate,  with  adjuncts  and 
modifiers,  should  have  been  the  first  speech,  is  precisely 
analogous  with  demanding  that  the  first  human  abodes 
should  have  contained  at  least  two  stories  and  a  cellar; 
or  that  the  earliest  garments  should  not  have  lacked 
buttons  and  braces ;  or  that  the  first  instruments  should 
have  had  handles,  and  been  put  together  with  screws. 
These  conditions,  in  the  last  three  cases,  are  at  once 
recognized  as  possible  only  to  a  miraculous  endowment 
of  humanity,  a  gifting  of  man,  at  his  birth,  not  with 
capacities  alone,  but  also  with  their  elaborated  results, 
with  the  fruits  of  education  ;  and  the  assumption  in  re- 
gard to  language  is  really  precisely  the  same,  a  proper 
part  of  a  miraculous  theory  of  the  origin  of  speech,  but 
of  no  other. 

The  word  "  miraculous,"  rather  than  "  divine,"  is 
here  used  to  characterize  the  theory  in  question,  be- 
cause it  is  the  only  truly  descriptive  one.  One  may 
hold  the  views  advocated  in  this  chapter  without  any 
detriment  to  his  belief  in  the  divine  origin  of  language ; 
since  he  may  be  persuaded  that  the  capacities  and  ten- 
dencies which  lead  man  universally  and  inevitably  to 
the  acquisition  of  speech  were  implanted  in  him  by  the 
Creator  for  that  end,  and  only  work  themselves  out  to 
a  foreseen  and  intended  result.  If  language  itself  were 
a  gift,  a  faculty,  a  capacity,  it  might  admit  of  being 
regarded  as  the  subject  of  direct  bestowal;  being  only 


CAPACITIES  INVOLVED  IN  SPEECH.  303 

a  result,  a  historical  result,  to  assert  that  it  sprang  into 
developed  being  along  with  man  is  to  assert  a  miracle; 
the  doctrine  has  no  right  to  make  its  appearance  except 
in  company  with  a  general  miraculous  account  of  the 
beginnings  of  human  existence.  That  view  of  the 
nature  of  language  which  linguistic  science  establishes 
takes  entirely  away  the  foundation  on  which  the  doc- 
trine of  divine  origin,  in  its  form  as  once  held,  reposed. 

The  human  capacity  to  which  the  production  of 
language  is  most  directly  due  is,  as  has  been  seen,  the 
power  of  intelligently,  and  not  by  blind  instinct  alone, 
adapting  means  to  ends.  This  is  by  no  means  a  unitary 
capacity;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  highly  composite  and 
intricate  one.  But  it  does  not  belong  to  the  linguistic 
student  to  unravel  and  explain,  any  more  than  to  the 
student  of  the  history  of  civilization  in  its  other  depart- 
ments; it  falls,  rather,  to  the  student  of  the  human 
mind  and  its  powers,  to  the  psychologist.  So  also  with 
all  the  mental  capacities  involved  in  language,  the 
psychic  forces  which  underlie  that  practical  faculty,  and 
which,  being  by  it  brought  to  conscious  action,  are 
drawn  out  and  trained  and  developed.  The  psycholo- 
gist has  a  work  of  highest  interest  and  importance  to 
do,  in  analyzing  and  exhibiting  this  ultimate  ground- 
work, on  which  have  grown  up  the  great  institutions 
that  make  man  what  he  is:  language,  society,  the  arts 
of  life,  machinery,  art,  and  so  on;  and  in  tracing  the 
history  of  education  of  the  human  powers  in  connection 
with  them;  and  his  aid  and  criticism  must  be  every- 
where of  great  value  to  their  student.  And  this  is  most 
of  all  the  case  with  regard  to  language;  for  language 
is  in  an  especial  manner  the  incorporation  and  revelation 
of  the  acts  of  the  soul.  Out  of  this  relation  has  grown 
the  error  of  those  who  look  upon  linguistic  science  as  a 


."' 


</ 


304        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OP  LANGUAGE. 

branch  of  psychology,  would  force  it  into  a  psychologic 
mould  and  conduct  it  by  psychologic  methods :  an  error 
which  is  so  refuted  by  the  whole  view  we  have  taken 
of  language  and  its  history,  that  we  do  not  need  to 
spend  any  more  words  upon  it  here.  Language  is 
merely  that  product  and  instrumentality  of  the  inner 
powers  which  exhibits  them  most  directly  and  most 
fully  in  their  various  modes  of  action;  by  which,  so  far 
as  the  case  admits,  our  inner  consciousness  is  externized, 
turned  up  to  the  light  for  ourselves  and  others  to  see 
and  study. 

Out  of  the  same  close  relation  grows  another  and  a 
far  grosser  error,  that  of  actually  identifying  speech 
with  thought  and  reason.  This,  too,  we  may  take  as 
sufficiently  refuted  by  our  whole  argument;  nothing 
but  the  most  imperfect  comprehension  of  language  can 
account  for  a  blunder  so  radical.  The  word  reason,  to 
be  sure,  is  used  so  loosely,  in  such  a  variety  of  senses, 
that  an  unclear  thinker  and  illogical  arguer  can  com- 
paratively easily  become  confused  by  it;  but  no  one 
who  attempts  to  enlighten  his  fellow-men  on  this  class 
of  subjects  is  excusable  for  such  inability  to  grasp  their 
most  fundamental  principles.  Language  is,  upon  the 
whole,  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  manifestations  of 
man's  higher  endowments,  and  the  one  of  widest  and 
deepest  influence  on  every  other;  and  the  superiority 
of  man's  endowments  is  vaguely  known  as  reason — and 
that  is  the  whole  ground  of  the  assertion  of  identity. 
There  are  many  faculties  which  go  to  the  production  of 
speech;  and  they  have  other  modes  of  manifestation 
besides  speech.  And  we  have  only  to  take  the  most 
normally  endowed  human  being  and  cut  off  artificially 
the  avenue  of  a  single  class  of  sensuous  impressions, 
those  of  hearing,  and  he  will  never  have  any  speech. 


WHY  THE  ANIMALS  DO  NOT  SPEAK.         305 

If  speech,  then,  is  reason,  reason  will  have  to  he  defined 
as  a  function  of  the  auditory  nerve. 

Whether,  among  the  powers  that  contribute  to  the 
production  of  language,  there  is  one,  or  more  than  one, 
not  belonging  in  any  degree  to  a  single  animal  below 
man,  is  a  point  which  must  be  left  to  the  psychologist 
to  decide.  It  may  fairly  be  claimed,  however,  that 
none  such  has  yet  been  demonstrated;  and  also,  that 
none  such  is  necessary:  a  simple  difference  of  degree  in 
the  capacities  common  to  both  is  amply  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  possession  and  the  lack,  on  the  one  side 
and  the  other.  A  heightened  power  of  comparison,  of 
the  general  perception  of  resemblances  and  differences; 
an  accompanying  higher  power  of  abstraction,  or  of 
viewing  the  resemblances  and  differences  as  attributes, 
characteristic  of  the  objects  compared;  and,  above  all 
else,  a  heightened  command  of  consciousness,  a  power 
of  looking  upon  one's  self  also  as  acting  and  feeling,  of 
studying  one's  own  mental  movements — these,  it  is  be- 
lieved, are  the  directions  in  which  the  decisive  superi- 
ority is  to  be  looked  for.  It  is  the  height  of  injustice 
to  maintain  that  there  is  not  an  approach,  and  a  very 
marked  approach,  made  by  some  of  the  lower  animals 
to  the  capacity  of  language.  In  the  ratio  of  what  we 
call  their  "  intelligence,"  they  are  able  distinctly  and 
fruitfully  to  associate  conceptions  with  signs — signs, 
namely,  which  we  make  for  them,  and  by  which  we 
guide  and  govern  them.  But,  as  an  actual  fact,  their 
capacity,  though  rising  thus  far,  stops  short  of  the 
native  production  of  such  a  sign,  even  of  its  acquisition 
from  the  higher  race  and  its  independent  use  among 
themselves.  There  is  a  long  interval,  incapable  of 
being  crossed  by  the  lower  animals,  between  their  en- 
dowments and  ours;  and  he  is  a  coward  who,  out  of 


306        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  LANGUAGE. 

fear  for  the  preservation  of  man's  supremacy,  attempts 
to  stretch  it  out,  or  to  set  up  barriers  upon  it. 

There  is  yet  another  important  corollary  from  our 
established  view  of  language  as  a  constituent  element 
of  human  civilization.  Its  production  had  nothing  to 
V  do,  as  a  cause,  with  the  development  of  man  out  of  any 
other  and  lower  race.  Its  province  was  to  raise  man 
from  a  savage  state  to  the  plane  which  he  was  capable 
of  reaching.  The  only  development  in  which  it  was 
concerned  is  the  historical  development  of  man's  facul- 
ties. Except,  of  course,  that  minor  and  limited  change 
which  falls  within  the  sphere  of  ordinary  heredity.  The 
descendant  of  a  cultivated  race  is  more  cultivable  than 
the  descendant  of  a  wild  one.  The  capacity  of  a  yet 
higher  cultivation  grows  with  the  slow  increase  of  cul- 
tivation ;  and  if  a  people  is  suddenly  brought  in  contact 
with  a  civilization  too  far  in  advance  of  it,  it  is  rather 
deteriorated  and  wasted  than  elevated.  The  power  of 
brain,  the  capacity  of  thought,  is  enhanced  by  speech; 
but  no  such  differences  are  produced  as  separate  one 
animal  species  from  another.  All  men  speak,  each  race 
in  accordance  with  its  gift  and  culture;  but  all  to- 
gether are  only  one  species.  To  the  zoologist,  man  was 
what  he  is  now  when  the  first  beginnings  of  speech 
were  made;  it  is  to  the  historian  that  he  was  infinitely 
different.  "  Man  could  not  become  man  except  by 
language;  but  in  order  to  possess  language,  he  needed 
already  to  be  man,"  is  one  of  those  Orphic  sayings 
which,  if  taken  for  what  they  are  meant  to  be,  poetic 
expressions  whose  apparently  paradoxical  character  shall 
compel  attention  and  suggest  thought  and  inquiry,  are 
admirable  enough.  To  make  them  the  foundation  or 
test  of  scientific  views  is  simply  ridiculous;  it  is  as  if 
one  were  to  say :  "  A  pig  is  not  a  pig  without  being 


LANGUAGE-MAKING  AN  INCIDENT,  NOT  TASK.     307 

fattened;  but  in  order  to  be  fattened  he  must  first  be 
a  pig."  The  trick  of  the  aphorism  in  question  lies  in 
its  play  upon  the  double  sense  of  the  word  man; 
properly  interpreted,  it  becomes  an  acceptable  expres- 
sion of  our  own  view :  '  Man  could  not  rise  from  what 
he  was  by  nature  to  what  he  was  able  and  intended  to 
become,  and  ought  to  become,  except  by  the  aid  of 
speech;  but  he  could  never  have  produced  speech  had 
lie  not  been  at  the  outset  gifted  with  just  those  powers 
of  which  we  still  see  him  in  possession,  and  which  make 
him  man.' 

We  have  already  noted  the  linguist's  inability  at 
present  to  form  even  any  valuable  conjectures  as  to 
the  precise  point  in  the  history  of  man  at  which  the 
germs  of  speech  should  have  appeared,  and  the  time 
which  they  should  have  occupied  in  the  successive  steps 
of  their  development.  Men's  views  are  greatly  at  vari- 
ance as  to  this,  and  with  no  prospect  of  reconciliation  at 
present,  because  there  is  no  criterion  by  which  they  can 
be  tested.  That  the  process  was  a  slow  one,  all  our 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  later  speech  gives  us  reason 
to  believe.  As  to  the  precise  degree  of  slowness,  that 
is  an  unessential  point,  which  we  may  well  enough  leave 
for  future  knowledge  to  settle — if  it  can.  What  we 
have  to  guard  especially  against  is  the  tendency  to  look 
upon  language-making  as  a  task  in  which  men  engage, 
to  which  they  direct  their  attention,  which  absorbs  a 
part  of  their  nervous  energy,  so  that  they  are  thereby 
prevented  from  working  as  effectively  in  other  direc- 
tions of  effort.  Language-making  is  a  mere  incident  of 
social  life  and  of  cultural  growth;  its  every  act  is  sug- 
gested or  called  forth  by  an  occasion  which  is  by  com- 
parison the  engrossing  thing,  to  which  the  nomenclative 
act  is  wholly  subordinate.    It  is  as  great  an  error  to  hold 


V 


308        NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OP   LANGUAGE. 

that  at  some  period  men 'are  engaged  in  making  and 
laving  up  expressions  for  their  own  future  use  and  that 
of  their  descendants,  as  that,  at  another  period,  men  are 
packing  away  conceptions  and  judgments  for  which  their 
successors  shall  find  expression.  Each  period  provides 
jnst  what  it  has  occasion  for;  nothing  more.  A  gen- 
eration or  period  may,  indeed,  by  a  successful  incorpo- 
ration in  speech  of  an  exceptionally  fertile  distinction, 
start  a  train  of  development  which  shall  lead  to  immense 
consequences  in  the  future,  and  lay  a  foundation  on 
which  a  great  deal  shall  admit  of  being  built :  such,  for 
example  (as  we  thought  to  see  above),  was  the  early 
Indo-European  establishment  of  a  special  predicative 
form,  a  verb.  This  is  truly  analogous  with  those  fortu- 
nate inventions  or  discoveries  (like  that  of  treating  iron, 
of  domesticating  useful  animals)  which  appear  now  and 
then  to  have  given  a  happy  turn  to  the  history  of  a  race, 
initiating  an  upward  career  of  growth  which  would 
have  seemed  a  priori  equally  within  the  reach  of  any 
other  race.  Such  occurrences  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
calling  accidental;  and  properly  enough,  if  we  are  care- 
ful to  understand  by  this  only  that  they  are  the  prod- 
uct of  forces  and  circumstances  so  numerous  and  so 
indeterminable  that  we  cannot  estimate  them,  and  could 
not  have  predicted  their  result.  But,  slower  or  more 
rapid,  the  production  of  language  is  a  continuous  proc- 
ess; it  varies  in  rate  and  kind  with  the  circumstances 
and  habits  of  the  speaking  community;  but  it  never 
ceases;  there  was  never  a  time  when  it  was  more  truly 
going  on  than  at  present. 

What  term  we  shall  apply  to  the  process  and  its 
result  is  a  matter  of  very  inferior  consequence.  Inven- 
tion, fabrication,  devisal,  production,  generation — all 
these  are  terms  which  have  their  favorers  and  also  their 


LANGUAGE   AN  INSTITUTION.  309 

violent  opposers.  Provided  we  understand  what  the 
thing  in  reality  is,  we  need  care  little  about  the  phra- 
seology used  in  characterizing  it.  Each  word  may  be 
not  unfitly  compared  to  an  invention;  it  has  its  own 
place,  mode,  and  circumstances  of  devisal,  its  prepara- 
tion in  the  previous  habits  of  speech,  its  influence  in 
determining  the  after-progress  of  speech-development; 
but  every  language  in  the  gross  is  an  institution,  on 
which  scores  or  hundreds  of  generations  and  unnum- 
bered thousands  of  individual  workers  have  labored. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE   SCIENCE    OF    LANGUAGE:    CONCLUSION. 

Character  of  the  study  of  language ;  its  analogies  with  the  phys- 
ical sciences.  Its  historical  methods ;  etymology ;  rules  of  its 
successful  pursuit.  Comparative  philology  and  linguistic 
science.    History  of  the  scientific  study  of  language. 

What  we  have  to  observe  here  in  conclusion  with 
regard  to  the  study  of  language  must  be  very  brief,  and 
mainly  in  the  way  of  more  or  less  obvious  corollary  to 
what  has  been  already  said.  With  any  one  who  accepts 
the  views  of  language  set  forth  above,  the  rest  will  fol- 
low as  a  matter  of  course;  with  one  who  does  not,  it  is 
too  late  here  to  argue. 

Whether,  in  the  first  place,  men  be  willing  to  allow 
to  the  study  the  name  of  a  science,  or  not,  is  a  matter  of 
the  smallest  moment.  It  has  its  own  character,  its  own 
sphere,  its  own  importance  of  bearing  on  other  depart- 
ments of  knowledge.  If  there  are  those  whose  defini- 
tion of  a  science  excludes  it,  let  it  be  so;  the  point  is 
one  on  which  no  student  of  language  need  insist. 

What  he  does  need  to  insist  upon  is  that  the  charac- 
ter of  his  department  of  study  be  not  misrepresented,  in 
order  to  arrogate  to  it  a  kind  and  degree  of  consequence 
to  which  it  is  not  entitled — by  declaring  it,  for  exam- 
ple, a  physical  or  natural  science,  in  these  days  when  the 
310 


THE  WILL  IN  LANGUAGE.  2,11 

physical  sciences  are  filling  men's  minds  with  wonder  at 
their  achievements,  and  almost  presuming  to  claim  the 
title  of  science  as  belonging  to  themselves  alone.  It  is 
curiously  indicative  of  the  present  as  an  early  and  for- 
mative period  in  the  history  of  this  study,  that  there 
should  exist  a  difference  of  opinion  among  its  conspicu- 
ous followers  as  to  whether  it  be  a  branch  of  physical  or 
of  historical  science.  The  difference  may  be  now  re- 
garded as  pretty  conclusively  settled:  certainly,  it  is 
high  time  that  any  one  who  takes  the  wrong  view  be 
read  out  of  the  ranks,  as  one  who  has  the  alphabet  of 
the  science  still  to  learn.  ISTo  study  into  which  the  acts 
and  circumstances  and  habits  of  men  enter,  not  only  as 
an  important,  but  even  as  the  predominant  and  deter- 
mining element,  can  possibly  be  otherwise  than  a  his- 
torical or  moral  science.  Xot  one  item  of  any  existing 
tongue  is  ever  uttered,  except  by  the  will  of  the  utterer;  . 
not  one  is  produced,  not  one  that  has  been  produced  or 
acquired  is  changed,  except  by  causes  residing  in  the 
human  will,  consisting  in  human  needs  and  preferences 
and  economies.  There  is  no  way  of  claiming  a  physical 
character  for  the  study  of  such  phenomena  except  by  a 
thorough  misapprehension  of  their  nature,  a  perversion 
of  their  analogies  with  the  facts  of  physical  science. 

These  analogies  are  real  and  striking,  and  are  often 
fitly    used    as    instructive    illustrations.      There    is  no  ,/ 

branch  of  historical  study  which  is  so  like  a  physical 
science  as  is  linguistics,  none  which  deals  with  such  an 
infinite  multiplicity  of  separate  facts,  capable  of  being 
observed,  recorded,  turned  over,  estimated  in  their  vari- 
ous relations.  A  combination  of  articulate  sounds  form- 
ing a  word  is  almost  as  objective  an  entity  as  a  polyp  or 
a  fossil;  it  can  be  laid  away  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  like  a 
plant  in  a  herbarium,  for  future  leisurely  examination. 


312  THE  SCIENCE  OP  LANGUAGE. 

Though  a  product  of  voluntary  action,  it  is  not  an  arti- 
ficiality ;  what  the  producer  consciously  willed  it  to  be  is 
but  the  smallest  part  of  what  we  seek  to  discover  in  it : 
we  seek  to  read  the  circumstances  which,  unconsciously 
to  himself,  guided  his  will,  and  made  the  act  what  it 
was;  we  regard  it  as  a  part  of  a  system,  as  a  link  in  a 
historical  series,  as  an  indicator  of  capacity,  of  culture, 
of  ethnological  connection.  So  a  flint-chip,  a  scratched 
outline  of  an  animal,  an  ornament,  is  a  product  of  in- 
tention; but  it  is  also,  as  a  historical  record,  pure  of  all 
intention;  a  fact  as  objectively  trustworthy  as  is  a  fos- 
sil bone  or  footmark.  The  material  of  archaeology  is 
even  more  physical  than  that  of  linguistics;  but  no 
one  has  ever  thought  of  calling  archaeology  a  physical 
science. 

As  linguistics  is  a  historical  science,  so  its  evidences 
are  historical,  and  its  methods  of  proof  of  the  same 
character.  There  is  no  absolute  demonstration  about 
it;  there  is  only  probability,  in  the  same  varying  degree 
as  elsewhere  in  historical  inquiry.  There  are  no  rules 
the  strict  application  of  which  will  lead  to  infallible 
results.  Nothing  will  make  dispensable  the  wide  gath- 
ering-in  of  evidence,  the  careful  sifting  of  it,  so  as  to 
determine  what  bears  upon  the  case  in  hand  and  how 
directly,  the  judicial  balancing  of  apparently  conflicting 
testimony,  the  refraining  from  pushing  conclusions  be- 
yond what  the  evidences  warrant,  the  willingness  to 
rest,  when  necessary,  in  a  merely  negative  conclusion, 
which  should  characterize  the  historical  investigator  in 
all  departments. 

The  whole  process  of  linguistic  research  begins  in 
and  depends  upon  etymology,  the  tracing  out  of  the 
histories  of  individual  words  and  elements.  From 
words  the  investigation  rises  higher,  to  classes,  to  parts 


ANCIENT   AND  MODERN   ETYMOLOGY.         3 13 

of  speech,  to  whole  languages.  On  accuracy  in  etymo- 
logical processes,  then,  depends  the  success  of  the  whole ; 
and  the  perfecting  of  the  methods  of  etymologizing  is 
what  especially  distinguishes  the  new  linguistic  science 
from  the  old.  The  old  worked  upon  the  same  basis  on 
which  the  new  now  works :  namely,  on  the  tracing  of 
resemblances  or  analogies  between  words,  in  regard  to 
form  and  meaning.  But  the  former  was  hopelessly 
superficial.  It  was  guided  by  surface  likenesses,  with- 
out regard  to  the  essential  diversity  which  might  under- 
lie them — as  if  the  naturalist  were  to  compare  and  class 
together  green  leaves,  green  paper,  green  wings  of  in- 
sects, and  green  laminse  of  minerals;  it  was  heedless  of 
the  sources  whence  its  material  came;  it  did  not,  in 
short,  command  its  subject  sufficiently  to  have  a  method. 
A  wider  knowledge  of  facts,  and  a  consequent  better 
comprehension  of  their  relations,  changed  all  this. 
Especially,  the  separation  of  languages  into  families, 
with  their  divisions  and  subdivisions,  the  recognition 
of  non-relationships  and  relationships  and  degrees  of 
relationship,  effected  the  great  revolution,  by  changing 
the  principles  on  which  the  probable  value  of  particu- 
lar evidences  is  estimated.  It  was  seen  that,  whereas  a 
close  verbal  resemblance  between  two  nearly  related 
tongues  has  the  balance  of  probabilities  in  its  favor, 
one  between  only  distantly  related  tongues,  or  those 
regarded  as  unrelated,  has  the  probabilities  against  it; 
and  hence,  that,  in  order  to  be  successful,  comparative 
investigation  must  be  carried  on  with  strict  regard  to 
demonstrated  affinities.  While  affinities  are  unsettled, 
of  course,  all  comparisons  are  tentative  only,  and  may 
be  made  in  any  direction,  with  due  caution  as  to  over- 
estimate  of  the  results  reached.  But  when  a  family 
like  the  Indo-European  is  constituted,  with  its  branches 
21 


314  THE  SCIENCE   OP   LANGUAGE. 

and  sub-branches  and  dialects,  all  founded  on  the  collec- 
tion and  thorough  examination  of  a  vast  body  of  evi- 
dence, and  by  its  side  another  like  the  Semitic  and  yet 
another  like  the  Scythian,  then  even  cross-comparisons 
between  the  branches  are  to  be  held  in  strict  subordina- 
tion to  the  general  comparison  of  branch  with  branch, 
and  cross-comparisons  between  families  not  less  so :  in- 
deed, they  are  not  to  be  admitted  at  all,  except  as  pos- 
sible evidences  bearing  on  the  question  whether  the 
families  are  not,  after  all,  ultimately  akin — a  question 
which  is  ever  theoretically  an  open  one,  but  of  which 
the  extreme  difficulty  has  been  sufficiently  pointed  out 
in  previous  chapters.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  only  when  the 
structure  and  material  of  the  families  shall  have  become 
understood  with  equal  thoroughness,  by  the  bringing 
to  bear  of  all  the  evidences  lying  within  the  boundaries 
of  each,  that  apparent  resemblances  between  them  can 
be  deemed  genuine,  or  used  as  signs  of  original  con- 
nection. It  is  not  enough  that  such  preparatory  work 
be  done  in  one  family;  all  the  subjects  of  comparison 
must  be  reduced  to  the  same  value  before  they  can  be 
treated  as  commensurable. 

There  are,  in  short,  two  fundamental  rules,  under 
the  government  of  which  all  comparative  processes 
must  be  carried  on:  1.  comparisons  must  have  in  view 
the  established  lines  of  genetic  connection;  and  2.  the 
comparer  must  be  thoroughly  and  equally  versed  in  the 
materials  of  both  sides  of  the  comparison.  For  want  of 
regard  to  them,  men  are  even  yet  filling  volumes  with 
linguistic  rubbish,  drawing  wide  and  worthless  conclu- 
sions from  unsound  and  insufficient  premises.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  they  be  duly  heeded,  there  is  no  limit  to 
the  scale  on  which  the  comparative  process  may  be  ear- 
ned on,  and  made  fruitful  of  valuable  results.     We 


COMPARATIVE  PIIILOLOGY.  315 

have  already  noticed  that  no  fact  in  any  language  is 
completely  understood  until  there  has  been  brought  to 
bear  upon  it  the  evidence  of  every  other  analogous  fact, 
related  or  unrelated;  and  doubtless,  to  the  end,  so  long 
as  any  corner  of  the  earth  remains  unransacked,  some 
of  the  views  which  we  hold  with  confidence  will  be 
liable  to  modification  or  overthrow. 

The  comparative   method   is   really  no   more   char-  * 

acteristic  of  the  study  of  language  than  of  the  other 
branches  of  modern  inquiry.  But  it  was  sufficiently 
conspicuous  in  connection  with  the  new  start  taken  by 
the  study  early  in  this  century  to  make  the  name  of 
"  comparative  philology,"  like  the  earlier  "  comparative 
anatomy "  and  the  later  "  comparative  mythology," 
familiar  and  favored,  for  a  time,  beyond  any  other. 
And  the  title  is  still  accurate  enough,  as  applied  to  that 
aspect  of  the  study  in  which  it  is  engaged  in  collecting 
and  sifting  its  material,  in  order  to  determine  corre- 
spondences and  relationships  and  penetrate  the  secrets 
of  structure  and  historic  growth;  but  it  is  insufficient 
as  applied  to  the  whole  study — the  science  of  language, 
or  linguistic  science,  or  glottology.  Comparative  phi- 
lology and  linguistic  science,  we  may  say,  are  two  sides 
of  the  same  study :  the  former  deals  primarily  with  the 
individual  facts  of  a  certain  body  of  languages,  classify- 
ing them,  tracing  out  their  relations,  and  arriving  at  the 
conclusions  they  suggest ;  the  latter  makes  the  laws  and  ^. 

general  principles  of  speech  its  main  subject,  and  uses 
particular  facts  rather  as  illustrations.  The  one  is  the 
working  phase,  the  other  the  regulative  and  critical  and 
teaching  phase  of  the  science.  The  one  is  more  impor- 
tant as  a  part  of  special  training,  the  other  as  an  ele- 
ment of  general  culture — if,  indeed,  it  be  proper  to  raise 
any  question  as  to  their  relative  importance,  even  to 


316  THE  SCIENCE  OF  LANGUAGE. 

the  special  student  of  language;  for  the  lack  of  either 
will  equally  unfit  him  for  doing  the  soundest  and  best 
service. 

Yet  the  two  are  certainly  different  enough  to  make 
it  possible  that  a  scholar  should  excel  in  the  one  and  not 
in  the  other.  The  science  of  language  runs  out,  on  its 
comparative  side,  into  an  infinity  of  details,  like  chem- 
istry or  zoology;  and  one  may  be  extremely  well  versed 
in  the  manipulation  of  its  special  processes  while  wholly 
wrong  as  regards  its  grander  generalizations :  just  as 
one  may  be  a  skillful  analyst  while  knowing  little  or 
nothing  of  the  philosophy  of  chemistry,  or  eminent  in 
the  comparative  anatomy  of  animals  with  no  sound 
knowledge  or  judgment  as  to  the  principles  of  biology. 
To  illustrate  this,  it  would  be  easy  to  cite  remarkable 
examples  of  men  of  the  present  generation,  enjoying 
high  distinction  as  comparative  philologists,  who,  as 
soon  as  they  attempt  to  reason  on  the  wider  truths  of 
linguistic  science,  fall  into  incongruities  and  absurdities ; 
or,  in  matters  of  minor  consequence,  they  show  in  mani- 
fold ways  the  lack  of  a  sound  and  defensible  basis  of 
general  theoretical  views.  Comparative  work  of  the 
broadest  scope  and  greatest  value  has  long  been  done 
and  is  still  doing;  but  the  science  of  language  is  only 
in  the  most  recent  period  taking  shape;  and  its  princi- 
ples are  still  subjects  of  great  diversity  of  opinion  and 
of  lively  controversy.  It  is  high  time  that  this  state  of 
things,  tolerable  only  in  the  growing  and  shaping  period 
of  a  study,  should  come  to  an  end,  and  that,  as  in  other 
sciences  of  observation  and  deduction — for  example,  in 
chemistry,  zoology,  geology — there  should  be  acknowl- 
edged to  exist  a  body,  not  of  facts  only,  but  of  truths, 
so  well  established  that  he  who  rejects  them  shall  have 
no  claim  to  be  considered  a  man  of  science. 


HISTORY   OF  THE  SCIENCE.  317 

To  review  the  history  of  the  study  is  a  task  for 
which  we  have  no  room  remaining,  and  which  may  well 
enough  be  left  here  unattempted;  it  is  a  subject  by  it- 
self, and  has  been  treated  in  independent  works.*  The 
beginnings  of  the  science  lie  as  far  back  in  the  past  as 
the  time  when  men  first  began  to  inquire  and  to  specu- 
late concerning  the  facts  which  they  observed  in  them- 
selves and  in  the  world  about  them.  The  germs  of  all 
the  most  important  modern  doctrines  are  to  be  found  in 
the  reasonings  of  the  Greek  philosophers,  for  example; 
but  unclearly  apprehended,  and  mixed  with  much  that 
is  erroneous.  Their  basis  of  knowledge  was  almost  en- 
tirely limited  to  the  facts  of  their  own  language,  and 
hence  insufficient  for  sound  generalization.  In  the 
great  progress  which  has  taken  place  during  the  last 
century,  resulting  in  the  elaboration  of  a  whole  sister- 
hood of  new  sciences,  it  was  in  the  nature  of  things 
impossible  that  linguistics  should  not  come  into  being 
with  the  rest;  and  it  came.  The  movement  toward  it 
was  well  initiated  in  the  last  century,  by  the  suggestive 
and  inciting  deductions  and  speculations  of  men  like 
Leibnitz  and  Herder,  by  the  wide  assemblage  of  facts 
and  first  classifications  of  language  by  the  Russians 
under  Catherine  and  by  Adelung  and  Vater  and  their 
like,  and  by  the  introduction  of  the  Sanskrit  to  the 
knowledge  of  Europe,  and  the  intimation  of  its  connec- 

*  Important  authorities  are:  L.  Lersch,  Sprachphilosophie  der 
AJten (1840) ;  H.  Steinthal,  Geschichte  der  Sprachwissenschaft  bei 
den  Griechen  und  Rornern  (1862-3) ;  T.  Benfey,  Geschichte  der 
Sprachwissenschaft  und  orientalischen  Philologie  in  Deutschland 
(1869).  Dr.  J.  Jolly  has  added  a  sketch  of  the  subject,  in  a  couple 
of  chapters,  to  his  German  version  of  the  author's  "  Language  and 
the  Study  of  Language  "  (Munich,  1874) ;  and  many  interesting 
details  are  given  in  M.  Miiller's  "  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Lan- 
guage," first  series. 


1/ 


318  THE  SCIENCE  OF   LANGUAGE. 

tions  and  importance,  by  Jones  and  Colebrooke.  No 
one  thing  was  so  decisive  of  the  rapid  success  of  the 
movement  as  this  last;  the  long-gathering  facts  at  once 
fell  into  their  proper  places,  with  clearly  exhibited  rela- 
tions, and  on  tbe  basis  of  Indo-European  philology  was 
built  up  the  science  of  comparative  philology.  Fred- 
erick Schlegel  was  a  forerunner  of  the  study ;  more  than 
any  other  man,  Francis  Bopp  was  its  leader.  Parallel 
with  Bopp's  great  Comparative  Grammar  of  Indo-Eu- 
ropean tongues  came  forth  Jacob  Grimm's  Comparative 
Grammar  of  the  Germanic  branch  of  the  family,  each 
in  its  own  way  a  masterpiece,  and  both  together  raising 
the  historical  study  of  language  at  once  to  the  rank  of 
a  science. 

Almost  all  these  names,  it  will  be  observed,  are 
German;  and,  in  truth,  to  Germany  belongs  nearly  the 
whole  credit  of  the  development  of  comparative  phi- 
lology; the  contributions  made  to  it  from  other  coun- 
tries are  of  only  subordinate  value.  In  Germany,  the 
names  of  George  Curtius,  Pott,  Benfey,  Schleicher, 
Kuhn,  Leo  Meyer,  are  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous, 
in  the  generation  still  mainly  upon  the  stage;  but  they 
have  so  many  fellows  of  nearly  equal  eminence  that 
it  is  almost  invidious  to  begin  specification  and  to  stop 
anywhere,  without  going  on  to  include  as  many  more. 
Outside  of  Germany,  Rask  in  Denmark,  Burnouf  in 
France,  and  Ascoli  in  Italy,  have  most  right  to  be  men- 
tioned on  the  same  page  with  the  great  German  masters. 

But  while  Germany  is  the  home  of  comparative 
philology,  the  scholars  of  that  country  have,  as  was 
hinted  above,  distinguished  themselves  much  less  in 
that  which  we  have  called  the  science  of  language. 
There  is  among  them  (not  less  than  elsewhere)  such 
discordance  on  points  of  fundamental  importance,  such 


THE  SCIENCE  NOT   YET  ESTABLISHED.        319 

uncertainty  of  view,  such  carelessness  of  consistency, 
that  a  German  science  of  language  cannot  be  said  yet 
to  have  an  existence.  And,  accustomed  as  the  world  is 
to  look  to  Germany  for  guidance  in  all  matters  pertain- 
ing to  this  subject,  until  they  shall  come  to  something 
like  agreement  it  will  hardly  be  possible  to  claim  that 
there  exists  a  world's  science  of  language.  In  the  pres- 
ent condition,  however,  of  linguistic  study  on  the  one 
side  and  of  anthropology  on  the  other,  it  cannot  be  that 
the  period  of  chaos  will  endure  much  longer ;  if  men 
will  begin  with  learning  to  understand  those  facts  in 
the  life  and  growth  of  language  which  lie  nearest  to 
them,  they  will  surely  be  guided  to  consistent  and  sen- 
sible views  as  to  the  past  history,  the  origin,  and  the 
nature  of  this  most  ancient  and  valuable  of  man's  social 
institutions. 


INDEX 


a  or  an,  article,  129. 
abbreviation  of  words,  38,  50-55. 
ablaut,  or  variation  of  radical  vowel, 

126, 128. 
Abyssinian  group,  247. 
Accadian  language,  235. 
accent  makes  unity  of  word,  121. 
accidental  correspondences  of  words, 

170. 
accusative  subject  of  infinitive,  93. 
Achreinenidan  language,  185. 
acquisition  of  language  by  the  indi- 
vidual, 7-31. 
acre,  39. 

additions  to  language,  108-133. 
adjective  originally  identical  with 
noun,  205;  comparison,  217,  218; 
its  inflection  lost  in  English,  103, 
104,  218  ;  English  noun  converti- 
ble into,  132,133. 
adverb,  Indo-European,  208. 
Afghan  language,  186. 
African  languages,  254-258. 
agglutinative  structure,  232. 
-ai  (French),  future  ending,  92. 
Albanian  language,  187. 
Algonkin  language,  259,  2G0,  263. 
alter  (French),  168. 
alphabetic   sounds,  how  produced, 
58-67 :  historical  developme.it  of 
alphabet,  68-70. 
alterative  tendency  in  language,  33, 

34. 
am,  90,  106. 
America,  136. 

American  languages,  259-264. 
Americanisms,  156. 
Amharic  language,  247. 
an  or  a,  article,  129. 
analogy,    its    force     in    linguistic 

growth,  74,  75. 
analytic    and    synthetic   structure, 
211,  212. 


Anglo-Saxon,  its  relation  to  Eng- 
lish, 33-43. 

animals,  the  lower,  relation  of  their 
expression  to  ours,  2,  3,  282,  290, 
291  ;  their  lack  of  speech,  305. 

animus,  137. 

Annamese  language,  239. 

antiquity  of  man,  192. 

application,  88. 

apprehend,  apprehension,  88, 137. 

Arabic  language  and  its  kin,  246, 
247. 

Aramaic  language,  246,  247. 

archasology,  its  relation  to  linguis- 
tics, 273,  312. 

Armenian  language,  186 ;  its  ex- 
change of  surd  and  sonant,  73. 

Armorican  language,  183. 

articles,  their  origin,  95. 

articulate  utterance.  68. 

Aryan  languages,  180, 193, 194. 

as  and  also,  129. 

aspirate  mutes,  64. 

aspiration,  h,  6G,  67. 

assimilation  of  sounds,  69-72. 

Assyrian  language,  246,  247. 

Athabaskan  group,  263. 

attenuation  of  meaning  of  words, 
90-95. 

Australian  languages,  244. 

auxiliary  and  relational  words,  their 
production,  90-96. 

Avestan  language,  185. 

banana,  115. 
bank,  bankrupt,  77. 
Bantu  family,  256. 
Bashkir  language,  231. 
Basque  language,  258,  275. 
be,  90. 

Bangali  language,  187. 
bishop,  45-48. 
blame,  55. 

321 


322 


INDEX. 


Bohemian  language,  182. 

book,  77. 

borrowing   as   means  of  adding  to 

language,  114-120,  170. 
Brahiu  language,  244. 
brother  and  related  words,  108, 171. 
Bulgarian  language,  182. 
Burmese  language,  23y 
Bushman  language,  257. 
butterfly,  84,  87. 

Casmr,  135. 

Canaan i tic  languages,  246. 

Canarcse  language,  244. 

candidate,  77,  7s. 

capacities  involved  in  production 
and  use  of  language,  145, 278,  279, 
303,  305. 

Carthaginian  languages,  246. 

cases,  216,  217 ;  Indo-European, 
205-207  ;  English  and  Freueh,104. 

Caucasian  languages,  245. 

Celtic  languages,  183. 

Chaldee  language,  246,  247. 

change  in  language,  its  universali- 
ty, 33-36  ;  illustrated  from  Anglo- 
Saxon,  36-43  ;  classification  of 
changes,  44  ;  change  in  outer  form 
of  words,  45-75 ;  in  inner  content, 
76-97 ;  losses  and  additions,  98- 
152  ;  its  effect  in  producing  dia- 
lects, 153-169. 

child's  acquisition  of  language,  8-31. 

Chinese  language,  111,  224,  225, 237- 
240,  301. 

class  varieties  of  language,  155. 

classification  of  lancruasres,  174,  229  ; 
its  bearing  on  etymological  pro- 
cesses, 313. 

Cochin-Chinese  language,  239. 

conn  'I a.  comic,  142. 

communication,  its  influence  on  lan- 
guage, 149-151,  157-159,  164-166; 
impulse  to  it  the  immediate  mo- 
tive to  language-making,  149,  283- 
287. 

community,  its  part  in  lan^uage- 
makingi  149,  151. 

comparative  method  in  linguistic 
science,  315. 

comparative  philology,  315,  316. 

composition  of  words,  its  value  as 
element  in  growth  of  language, 
121-130,  197-199. 

conjunctions,  Indo-European.  209. 

consciousness,  its  different  degrees 
in  language-making,  135-137,  117. 
148. 


conservative   force   in   life  of  lan- 
guage, 32,  33. 
constraint  in  language-learning,  22, 

23. 

control,  84. 

conventionality  of  words,  19,  283, 
288;    conventional    phraseology, 

113. 
copper,  78. 

Coptic  language,  254. 

<  lornish  language,  183. 

correspondences,  verbal,  as  signs  of 
relationship,  169,  17u. 

cost,  55. 

count,  55. 

crescent,  82-84. 

Croatian  language,  182. 

culture,  its  effect  in  language  his- 
tory, 158,  176. 

Cymric  languages,  183. 

-</,  preterit  sign,  42,  53. 
Dakota  language,  259,  263. 
Danish  language,  181. 
decimal  system,  its  basis,  'JO. 
denominative  verbs,  131,  132. 
derivation,  89. 

derivative  endings,  Indo-European, 
208. 

</.  r,  lop,  88. 

dialect  and  language,  distinction  of, 

177, 178. 
dialectic  variation  in  language,  153- 

178. 
digamma,  Greek,  72. 
disaster,  99. 
disciple,  40,  41. 
dissimilation,  euphonic,  71. 
divarication,  dialectic,  law  of,  163- 

166. 
divine  origin  of  language,  302,  303. 
do,  91. 
-dom,  123. 
double,  88. 

Dra vidian  family,  244,  245. 
duplicity,  88. 

ears,  38,  74,  75. 

ease  or  economy,  tendency  toward, 
as  element  in  phonetic  history  of 
language,  49-74;  its  constructive 
effect,  53  :  same  principle  in 
change  of  meaning,  79. 

education  and  culture,  their  effect 
on  history  of  language,  158. 

Egyptian  language,  '-'54-256. 

i  It  ctricity,  142. 

English  language,  a  mixed  speech, 


INDEX. 


323 


9,  100,  117-119;  its  periods,  33; 
its  change  from  Anglo-Saxon  il- 
lustrated, 3(5-43  ;  its  inconsistent 
vowel-system,  56 ;  loss  of  old 
words  and  forms,  99-1011 ;  conver- 
sion of  one  part  of  speech  into 
another,  132,  133. 

Esthonian  language,  230. 

tie, etc.  (French),  54. 

Ethiopian  languages,  206. 

Ethiopic  or  Geiz  language,  247. 

ethnology,  bearing  of  language  on, 
265-276. 

Etruscan  language,  188,  275. 

etymology,  foundation  of  linguistic 
science,  31 2, 313 ;  its  true  methods, 
313-315. 

expression,  various  means  of,  1,  2, 
282,  287  ;  conversion  of  emotional 
into  intellectual,  283-289 ;  pre- 
dominance of  voice,  291-294. 

extension  of  sphere  of  meaning  of 
words,  84-96. 

families  of  language,  174,  228,  229, 
268. 

fare,  38,  39,  52,  74,  75. 

femina  and  its  derivatives,  167. 

figurative  transfer  of  meaning,  86- 
89,  112. 

final  part  of  a  word  most  liable  to 
change,  71,  72. 

Finnish  language,  230. 

foot,  86,  300: 

for,  fore,  94,  129. 

foreign  language,  its  acquisition,  23- 
25. 

forget,  89. 

formal  expression,  objects  and  means 
of,  106,  213-227 ;  its  derivation 
from  more  material  elements,  89- 
96 ;  learned  later  than  material 
expression  by  children,  13,  14. 

formative  elements,  how  obtained, 
122-130,  197;  their  uses,  129-131. 

f rater  and  its  derivatives,  167,  171. 

French  language,  9,  183. 

fricative  sounds,  61,  64,  65. 

Frisian  language,  181. 

Gadhelic  languages,  183. 

Gaelic  language,  183. 

(Julia  language,  256. 

galvanism,  142. 

'gas,  17,  120. 

gazette,  77. 

Geez  language,  247. 

gender  in  language,  215,  216  ;  in  In- 


do-European, 39,  206,  207  ;  loss  in 

English,  104. 
genetic  classification,  its  value,  277. 
genius  of  a  language,  150. 
y.  ntei  /,  gentile,  gentle,  129. 
Georgian  language,  245. 
German  language,  181  ;  its  history, 

160-162.    ~  •" 

German  linguistic  scholars,  317-319. 
Germanic  languages,  181. 
gesture  as  means  of  expression,  292. 
go,  101. 
good,  12,  111. 
Greek  language,  184,  185. 
green,  14-17,  83,  86,  138. 
Grimm's  Law  of  rotation  of  mutes, 

57,  58,  73. 
growth  of  language,  34;  its  modes 

and  processes,  45-152. 

Hamitic  family,  254-256. 
harmonic    sequence   of  vowels    in 

Scythian,  71,  234. 
have,  91-93. 
head,  86,  87. 

Hebrew  language,  246,  247. 
High-German  languages,  181. 
Himalayan  languages,  240. 
Himyaritic  language,  247. 
Hindi  language,  187. 
Hindustani  language,  187. 
Hottentot  language,  257. 
human  race,  its  antiquity,  192 ;  its 

unity  or  variety  not  demonstrable 

by  language,  268-270. 
Hungarian  language,  230. 
Huzvaresh  language,  185. 

Icelandic  language,  181. 

ideas  antecedent  to  their  names, 
137-140 

imitative  principle  in  language- 
making,  120,  2S2,  294-298. 

imply,  88. 

important,  88. 

Indian,  78. 

Indian  (Asiatic)  languages.  186, 187. 

individual  action  on  language,  144- 
151, 153,163;  individual  varieties, 
of  language,  154-156. 

Indo-European  family,  its  establish- 
ment, 167-174  ;  its  branches,  180- 
188;  importance,  188-191;  time 
and  place  of  unity  unknown,  192- 
194;  history  of  its  structural  de- 
velopment,'194-212. 

influence,  99,  102. 

inner  form  of  language,  22. 


324 


INDEX. 


inorganic  means  of  formal  distinc- 
tion. 127. 

inosculation,  137. 

instincts  in  man,  289,  290. 

institutions  composing  culture,  lan- 
guage one  of  them,  280,  281,  34. 

intellectual  and  moral  terms  de- 
rived from  physical,  88,  89. 

interjections,  209,  210. 

internal  change  of  vowel  in  Indo- 
European,  its  origin,  125-128. 

invention  of  new  words,  120. 

invest,  88. 

Iranian  languages,  185,  186. 

Irish  language,  183. 

Irish  pronunciation  of  English,  156. 

Iroquois  language,  259,  263. 

is  being,  102, 151. 

Italian  language,  184. 

Italic  languages,  183. 

its,  75, 151. 

Japanese  language,  117,  240,  241. 
jovial,  81. 
Julius,  July,  135. 

Kalevala,  230. 
Kirghiz  language,  231. 
knight,  40. 
Kurdish  language,  186. 

language,  double  sense  of  the  term, 
278-280 ;  nature  of  language,  1,  2, 
30,  280,  282,  304 ;  universality  as 
possession  of  man,  2,  281 ;  lim- 
ited to  man,  2,  3,  281 :  why  thus 
limited,  305  ;  its  discordance,  3  ; 
its  acquisition  by  speakers,  7-30 ; 
conservative  and  alterative  forces 
in  its  life  and  growth,  32-34 ;  pro- 
cesses of  its  constant  growth  or 
change,  34-152  ;  forces  producing 
this,  144-151  ;  dialectic  variation, 
153-178;  relationships  and  classi- 
fication of  languages,  169-175  ;  the 
known  families  of  language,  179— 
212,  228-264  ;  linguistic  structure, 
213-227  ;  bearing  of  language  on 
ethnology,  265-277  ;  historical  be- 
ginnings of  language,  199-202, 
226,  227,  298,  299 ;  their  origin, 
278-309  ;  the  science  of  language, 
^10-319. 

Lappish  language,  230. 

Latin  language,  183,  184;  its  his- 
tory, 162,  16S;  borrowing  from  it, 
11''.,  117. 


laws  of  language,  their  true  charac- 
ter, 146. 

learned  dialects,  159. 

-less,  122. 

Lettish  language,  182. 

Libyan  or  Berber  language,  256. 

life  of  language,  32-34. 

linguistic  science,  or  science  of  lan- 
guage, its  problems,  4,  15,  16  ;  its 
character  and  method,  5, 191,  310- 
315;  difference  of  its  material 
from  that  of  physical  science, 
266,  267 ;  its  history,  5,  317-319 ; 
its  relation  to  Indo-European 
study,  189-191. 

Lithuanian  language,  182. 

Livonian  language,  182. 

loss  of  material  trom  language,  50- 
53,  98-107. 

Low- German  languages,  181. 

lunatic,  78. 

-ly,  41,  52,  122. 

magenta,  16,  138. 

magnetism,  142. 

Mahratti  language,  187. 

Malay-Polynesian  family,  241-243. 

Maiayalam  or  Malabar  language, 
244. 

Malayan  languages,  242. 

man,  men,  127. 

man,  universal  and  sole  possessor 
of  language,  2,  3,  281,  282,  303- 
305 ;  his  development  by  means 
of  language,  306,  307  ;  question 
of  his  antiquity,  192. 

Manehu  language,  236,  237. 

material  and  form  in  language,  213- 
227 ;  material  expression  reduced 
to  formal,  89-96. 

Maya  language,  263. 

Melanesian  languages,  242. 

-ment  (French),  122,  123. 

mental  training  and  shaping  in  ac- 
quisition of  ianguage,  19-23. 

Mercury,  mercurial,  80,  81. 

metaphor,  88. 

methinhs,  42. 

miraculous  theorv  of  language,  302, 
303. 

mixture  of  race  and  language,  9, 
271,  272. 

Moabite  language,  247. 

modification  of  vowel  {it  ml  an' 
Germanic  language,  71,  127,  151 

Mteso-Gothic  language,  181. 

Mongolian  language,  235-237. 

monosyllabic  family,  237-240. 


INDEX. 


325 


month,  81. 

moon,  80-83. 

Moravian  language,  182. 

Mordwinian  language,  230. 

morphology,  question  of  a  science 

of;  144. 
mulier  and  its  derivatives,  167. 
musket,  100. 

Muskokee  languages,  263. 
in  nslin,  78. 
mute  consonants,  61-63. 

name-making  process,  as  part  of  the 
orowth  ot  language,  134-151, 
307. 

nasal  mutes,  63. 

Netherlandish  language,  181. 

Norwegian  language,  181. 

noun-inflection  in  Indo-European, 
205-207. 

obsolescent  material  in  language, 
101-103. 

obvious,  89. 

occur,  89. 

of,  off,  94,  129,  138. 

Old  Bactrian  language,  185. 

( >ld  Persian  language,  185. 

( >ld  Prussian  language,  182. 

( )ld  Saxon  language,  181. 

one,  129. 

onomatopoeia,  its  part  in  language- 
making,  120,  282,  294-298. 

origin  of  language,  278-309. 

Oscan  language,  184. 

Osmanli  Turkish  language,  231. 

Ossetic  language,  186. 

( >stiak  language,  230. 

Otomi  language,  262. 

Pali  language,  187. 

paper,  77. 

Papuan  family,  243,  244. 

parts  of  speech  in  Indo-European, 
209. 

Pehlevi  language,  185. 

perplex,  88. 

Persian  language,  185, 186  ;  its  bor- 
rowing and  lending,  117. 

Phoenician  language,  246, 247- 

phonetic  change  in  the  growth  of 
language,  49,  73  ;  limit  to  its  ex- 
planation, 73,  74. 

physical  science,  analogy  of  linguis- 
tic science  with  it,  311,  312. 

pine-apple,llb. 

planet,  79, 83. 


plead,1h. 

Polabian  language,  182. 

Polish  language,  182. 

Polynesian  languages,  242. 

polysynthetic  structure,  258-262. 

Portuguese  language,  184. 

position  as  means  of  formal  distinc- 
tion, 221. 

post,  84. 

Prakrit  language,  187. 

preach,  55. 

prepositions  in  Indo-European,  94, 
208,  209. 

priest,  77. 

pronominal  roots  and  pronouns  in 
Indo-European,  201,  207. 

proper  names,  79,  80. 

proven,  75. 

Provencal  language,  184. 

psychology,  its  part  in  connection 
with  the  study  of  language,  10, 15, 
303,  304. 

queen,  quean,  168. 
Quichua  language,  203,  264. 

race  and  language,  their  relations, 
8,  9,  271-276. 

read,  read,  126. 

reason,  relation  of  language  to,  304, 
305. 

relation,  88. 

relative  pronouns,  95. 

Rhasto-Ronianic  language,  184. 

right,  89. 

rise,  109. 

roll,  role,  84. 

Romaic  or  Modern  Greek  language, 
185.  _ 

Romanic  languages,  183;  their  his- 
tory, 162,  163,  166. 

roots  of  Indo-European  language, 
199,  202;  of  other  languages,  226, 
227;  of  Semitic,  248  ;  their  value, 
298,  299. 

Rumansh  language,  184. 

Russian  language,  182. 

sabbath,  40,  41. 

Samoved  languages,  230. 

Sanskrit  language,  186, 187,  117. 

saturnine,  81. 

savior,  40,  41. 

Scandinavian  languages,  181. 

science  of  language — see  linguistic 

science. 
Scythian  family. 230-237;its  branch- 


326 


INDEX. 


ea,  230,  231  ;  its  structure,  232-234 ; 

its  doubtful  members, 235-287, 244, 

245. 
Semitic  family,  246-254;  its  locality 

and  branches,  24*;,  247  ;  structure, 

248-251;   question   of  the   origin 

of  this,  251-253;   of  relationship 

with  other  languages,  253,  254. 
semivowels,  65,  66. 
Servian  language,  182. 
Bex  as  ground  of  formal  distinction 

in  language,  215,  216. 
shall,  93. 
-ship,  123. 

Siamese  language,  239. 
sibilants,  64. 
silent  letters,  55. 
simple,  simplicity,  88. 
Skipetar  language,  187. 
slang,  112, 113. 
Slavonic  languages.  182. 
Slovakian  language,  182. 
Slovenian  language,  182. 
-some,  123. 
sonant  and  surd,  distinction  of,  63; 

their  interchanges,  70,  71. 
sooth,  41,  43. 
Sorbian  language,  182. 
South- African  family,  256,  257. 
Spanish  language,  184. 
specialization  of  meaning  in  growth 

of  language,  82-84. 
spirants,  65. 
spiritus,  137. 

structure  in  language,  213-227. 
such,  55. 

suffixes,  how  made,  122-130. 
suggest,  89. 
sun,  80,  81,  83. 
surd    and    sonant,    distinction   of, 

63. 
Swedish  language,  181. 
synthetic  and  analytic  structure, 211, 

212. 
Syrian  language,  246,  247. 

tabu,  115. 
take  place.  06. 

Tamil  language,  244. 

Tartar    or    Tatar    languages,   220, 

231. 
Telugu  language,  244. 
there  is,  96. 

thorough,  through,  "[SO. 
Tibetan  language,  240. 
time    in    verbal     expression,     219, 

220. 
to,4S,  94, 138. 


tragedy,  tragic,  142. 
transfer,  88. 
trivial,  88. 

Tungusic  language,  235,  237. 
Tupi-Guarani  languages,  262,  264. 
Turanian  languages,  231. 
Turkish  languages,  230,  231,  117. 
Turkoman  language,  231. 

Ugrian  languages,  230. 
Uigur  language,  231. 
Umbrian  Isnguatre,  184. 
Ural-Altaic  family,  231. 
Urdu  language,  187. 
usage  the  law  of  speech,  141. 
Usbek  language,  231. 
utter,  129. 

variation  of  radical  vowel  (ablaut), 
128. 

verb,  Indo-European,  202-205 ;  Scy 
thian,    23;);     Semitic,    248-250; 
American,  260;  verbal  structure, 
218-221 ;   making  of  verbs  from 
nouns  and  adjectives,  131,132. 

vocabulary,  different  extent  of,  in 
individuals  and  classes,  25,  26. 

voice  as  means  of  expression,  287, 
289,  291-294. 

vol 'line,  77. 

vowels,  61,  65,  66;  r.lation  of  vow- 
el and  consonant.  68;  chaotic  con- 
dition of  English  vowel  system, 
55,  56. 

Wallachian  language,  184. 

was,  were,  90. 

Wednesday,  81. 

Welsh  language,  183. 

which,  55. 

wi/i  and  its  kin,  168. 

will,  93. 

Wogul  language,  230. 

words,  are  arbitrary  and  conven- 
tional signs  for  ideas,  19,  283.  288  ; 
connected  with  meaning  by  a 
mental  association  only,  11,  18, 
48;  this  how  established,  26-30; 
character  of  the  etymological  rea- 
son, 143;  are  not  definitions  or 
descriptions, 47, 48 ;  have  each  its 
own  time,  place,  occasion,  16,  17, 
40,  17;  are  class-names, 78  ;  change 
form  and  meaning  separately,  49  ; 
changes  of  form,  45  75;  ehan>rcs 
of  meaning,  76-97 ;  figurative 
change,   86-89;    attenuation,  90- 


INDEX. 


95;  chauge  of  pregnancy  or  dig- 
nity, BIT,  118;  variety  of  mean- 
ings, 110,  111  ;  loss  of 'words  from 
a  language,  98-102;  additions  of 
new  words,  108-133;  principles 
governing  addition,  134-152. 
wot,  93. 


Wotiak  language,  230. 
wrong,  89. 

Yakut  language,  231. 

Zend  language,  185. 
Ziryanian  language,  230. 


327 


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